Monday, January 5. 2009

DC Gov Drops Daily Crime E-mail, Users Unhappy with alternative, a Map

The daily crime e-mail had been sent out by the D.C. police to the public via e-mail. It included all crimes in each of the department's districts, broken down by Police Service Area. The e-mails have been dropped per Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes because they often included information that may have jeopardized police work. Instead, the DC police offer a map built on the acclaimed DC Atlas.

That app is quite complex, allowing search near an address, searching on a specific crime, etc. GIS may love it but some, like the Georgetown Metropolitan Blog (GMT) finds it wanting compared to the sleek text listing. (Full review from the blog including what are suggested as better alternatives: below is a summary.)

...it’s terrible. It’s based on inferior mapping software, it’s difficult to use, and it doesn’t allow you to actually find out any information on each crime. For crime maps, there are better options out there. But a crime map is not a satisfactory replacement for a daily list. MPD has offered the crime map for years, why does it all of the sudden think that it’s a better option than daily blotters?

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This is a great idea to keep the community alert and vigilant. I know police sometimes try to hide negative news but the people should know what is going on around them.

#1 Nick Stamoulis (Link) on 2009-01-05 10:02 (Reply)

Crimemap.dc.gov is a three-year-old application. The primary compromise in its creation was the need to balance the District's desire to inform with its desire to protect the identity of crime victims. For this reason, all crime locations are shown on the center of the city block in which they occur rather than on specific properties, and the ability to identify individual crimes by pointing and clicking was intentionally removed.

#2 Barney Krucoff, GIS Manager, District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology (Link) on 2009-01-05 22:16 (Reply)

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In reply to	[ Top level ]#1: Nick Stamoulis on 2009-01-05 10:02 #2: Barney Krucoff, GIS Manager, District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology on 2009-01-05 22:16
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