SpotCrime

Week of October 12, 2020

Finding police chiefs is not easy, community response groups and oversight committees formed, media coverage of police, sharing data reduces crime, sensor that activates body cams, addressing violence, and more… POLICE CONDUCT Why Finding a Police Chief Just Got a Lot More Complicated (USNews) see also: Running the police department isn’t an easy job (LocalMemphis.com) Michigan law enforcementContinue reading “Week of October 12, 2020”

Week of October 5, 2020

Reimagining 911 calls for service responses, community police relationships, crime rates vary in cities, preventing police brutality with body cams, how local news affects clearance rates, human trafficking detection by banks, and more… POLICE CONDUCT Opelika police announce community relations program (AONow) see also: Ask the Undersheriff: Neighborhood watch groups help reduce crime (GoSkagit.com) and also: Community-Based Crime ReductionContinue reading “Week of October 5, 2020”

Week of September 28, 2020

FBI 2019 crime stats released, police reassess handling some 911 calls, social media brews violence, looking at Palantir surveillance used by LAPD, more police agencies nationwide share crime data on transparency portals, bail reform, and more… POLICE CONDUCT LA County Moves Closer To Redirecting Some Emergency Response Away From Law Enforcement (Witness LA) see also: Austin cityContinue reading “Week of September 28, 2020”

SpotCrime Transparency Ranking 2020 Update

The SpotCrime Crime Data Transparency Ranking was created in 2013 and ranks cities on how open they are with crime data. Periodically, we update the ranking to reflect the ever-changing landscape of open crime data. This year we have decided to make a few changes in regard to our ranking procedures, all which are outlined below. TheContinue reading “SpotCrime Transparency Ranking 2020 Update”

Week of September 21, 2020

This week features mental health, social workers added to police forces, white supremacists and anarchists biggest domestic terrorist threats, police and justice system algorithms get a second look, crime data transparency ranking, and more… POLICE CONDUCT Pinellas County sheriff to announce changes to Mental Health Unit, response to calls for service (WFLA) see also: Northern Kentucky police departmentsContinue reading “Week of September 21, 2020”

A Call for Researchers to Embrace Robust, Open Crime Data

Below is the paper I authored that was published in The American Society of Criminology’s newsletter The Criminologist. The American Society of Criminology (ASC) is an international organization whose members pursue scholarly, scientific and professional knowledge concerning the measurement, etiology, consequences, prevention, control, and treatment of crime and delinquency. ASC publications consist of the following: the journals, Criminology and Criminology & PublicContinue reading “A Call for Researchers to Embrace Robust, Open Crime Data”

Without a trace: How a misfired Florida law makes crimes disappear

This blog post appeared as a guest column on the blog of The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida. Florida’s Chapter 119, the Public Records Act, is seen as one of the strongest transparency laws in the country when it comes to accessing public crime information. Chapter 119 has allowed websitesContinue reading “Without a trace: How a misfired Florida law makes crimes disappear”

Location Information is Imperative for Effective and Informative Policing

Typically, when a police agencies releases CAD or RMS data, they release block level address locations. SpotCrime will ask police agencies for latitude and longitude coordinates, block level addresses, and even exact addresses (all addresses we receive are masked to the block level upon publishing to the web). Lat/long coordinates are a part of ourContinue reading “Location Information is Imperative for Effective and Informative Policing”

Impacts of Open Crime Data

Compared to a couple of years ago, there has been exponential growth in the number of cities opening up crime data. How should success be measured? We’ve checked out Chicago and Louisville – two cities who have been publishing crime data openly for a couple of years – to see what’s being done with data. TheseContinue reading “Impacts of Open Crime Data”

Qualities of a Successful Open Crime Dataset

Hundreds of police agencies and sheriff offices are making their crime data openly available. We wanted to make sure we highlighted the great qualities of an open crime data feed and continue to implore agencies to make their crime data feeds as useful and complete as possible. We’ve found that sharing data openly is a goodContinue reading “Qualities of a Successful Open Crime Dataset”