Boston Police Department partners with crime Web site

5/23/09The Boston Police Department has been no stranger to Internet technology, with a crime blog, Twitter account, and its new partnership with CrimeReport.com, a national Web site that provides timely, map-based information based on criminal reports. This partnership will allow citizens to get updated email alerts about their neighborhoods in real time.

The BPD is among more than 400 North American police departments that have begun working with CrimeReports, including Massachusetts departments in Barnstable, Billerica, Brookline, Greenfield, Haverhill, Leominster, Malden, Medford, and Yarmouth. The site works by "law enforcement agencies publishing local crime incident data in near real-time to CrimeReports.com, converting raw crime data into easily accessible, actionable information," CrimeReports.com said.

However, law enforcement agencies have the ultimate control and it is essentially in their hands as to how often the data is updated and what data is reported. CrimeReports.com claims that most agencies chose to update their data daily.

CrimeReports categorizes incidents into 15 general categories and 21 subcategories. The categories include assault, breaking and entering, homicide, proactive policing, property crime, quality of life, registered sex offenders, robbery, sex offense, theft, traffic, theft from vehicle, vehicle recovery, theft of vehicle and other. Users are able to search specific categories of crimes or specific areas. For example crime reported in the Emerson College area from June 13 to June 23, 120 Boylston, included three "thefts," one "theft from a vehicle," and one "assault."

Assault has been the main Boston crime reported by the BPD, totaling 25.7 percent of all reported crime for May and 24.7 percent of crimes reported for the first 23 days of June. Statistics and trends like these are available to the general public through easy-to-read charts and graphs, which CrimeReports creates from police reports. Users can chose any period of days and the Web site will analyze the crime data for the chosen jurisdiction during the specified time. However, the Web site does issue a disclaimer: "The information on this site is for interest only and is subject to error and change based on data provided by police agencies."

CrimeReports.com is a resource for communities to understand their surroundings and make information available to those whom it matters the most too, citizens CrimeReports.com said. It can be essential in making users more aware of the crime in their neighborhoods, so that they can make safe decisions and it acts as a tool to connect police departments with citizens. "CrimeReports.com will prove particularly valuable to those in the community who want to stay informed about what is going on in their neighborhoods, with again, the hope that they will work with us [the police department] to address these issues," said Chief Rob Davis of the San Jose Police Department according to CrimeReports.com.

Free for citizens to use, CrimeReports.com is available to law enforcement agencies for a monthly subscription fee that allows them to publish crime and call data. Fees can range from $49 per month to $199 per month, depending on the population residing in the agency's jurisdiction.