Category Archives: Uncategorized

In addition to working to become one of the largest crime mapping and alert systems in the world, we also advocate for open, equal, and fair access to crime data. We’ve interacted with thousands of police agencies over the past 10+ years which has given us incredible insight into different ways police departments allow accessContinue reading “SpotCrime’s Mission to Democratize Crime Data”

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”

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”

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”

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”

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”

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”

SpotCrime was asked to testify on the Maryland Open Data Bill SB644. You can read more about the bill on OpenStates. The bill, which was passed in April 2014 and took effect June 2014, establishes the Council on Open Data, which is tasked with promoting the policy of the State that open data be machine readableContinue reading “SpotCrime Testimony from MD Open Data Bill SB644”

SpotCrime had been asked to submit testimony on an upcoming Kansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) hearing that discussed changes to the current FOIA laws, bringing transparency in Kansas into the 21st century. You can read the testimony we submitted below. This is not our first time providing testimony on access to public information. In 2014, weContinue reading “Testimony on Kansas FOIA Law Changes”

There are already methods for agencies to share information among each other like N-Dex, NEIM, GJXDM. But what about sharing information openly with the public?Currently, Baltimore shares data differently than Baltimore County who shares it differently than Annapolis, MD who shares it differently than Arlington, VA who shares it differently than Dallas, TX who shares it differently thanContinue reading “The SpotCrime Open Crime Standard (SOCS)”