Contrasting GIS-based Crime Mapping vs. Google Maps Crime Mapping

San Bernardino County now offers an online crime mapping site built by the Omega Group, an ESRI business partner. In covering it in the Press-Enterprise, the reporter needed to contrast the offering with widely-known Google Maps-based mapping solutions.

With a $100,000 federal grant, the department will offer a crime map through its Web site, http://www.SBPDonline.org, customized to its specific district and patrol beat program. Residents can also search for reported crimes in a one-mile radius of any city park, school or hospital.

The crime mapping, offered through the Omega Group’s “Community CrimeView” software, will eventually gather data going back as far as two years. Currently, users can search back to Jan. 1.

Community CrimeView differs from other agencies’ offerings through the same company’s “CrimeMapping.com” in that it uses the same maps San Bernardino police officers utilize for internal purposes, with an increased ability to generate neighborhood-specific reports.

CrimeMapping.com projects its basic crime reports onto Google Maps.

“We’re giving you a lot more personal functionality and openness,” said Michael Eckley, the department’s public safety information technology manager.

The Inland News Today reports on the Sheriff’s Dept.‘s CrimeMapping.com site and does not mention the other site.