Comments on: An idea whose time has come http://puffbox.com/2008/07/29/crime-mapping-idea-whose-time-has-come/ Adventures in government, politics and open source. Mostly WordPress-related. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 10:55:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Simon http://puffbox.com/2008/07/29/crime-mapping-idea-whose-time-has-come/comment-page-1/#comment-505 Simon Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:04:31 +0000 http://puffbox.com/?p=259#comment-505 Quick update: according to <a href="http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/20199" rel="nofollow">this</a>, the London maps will be introduced 'in early August'. That'll keep the <a href="http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/?p=194" rel="nofollow">Guardian guys</a> happy. Quick update: according to this, the London maps will be introduced 'in early August'. That'll keep the Guardian guys happy.

]]> By: Shane McCracken http://puffbox.com/2008/07/29/crime-mapping-idea-whose-time-has-come/comment-page-1/#comment-504 Shane McCracken Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:05:03 +0000 http://puffbox.com/?p=259#comment-504 I worked with West Mercia Police 7 years ago on a project called the Rural Safety Initiative which used mapping to help local residents work out what caused crime, anti-social behaviour and traffic accidents and to help them develop ways of reducing incidents. We wanted to take the project online, but the Home Office back then couldn't find any money for it. It obviously might be a tad cheaper to do now. It'll be interesting to see how the crime maps develop. What value does ward level have in preventing crime? I'm sure it would be useful in directing resources or holding police to account, but the most useful data would come out of the detail especially if local people could add to it themselves with unrecorded incidents (http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/2008/07/neighbourhood-w.html). It is those local people who will often spot the reasons for the problems as illustrated in the Free Our Data post: http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/?p=220 I worked with West Mercia Police 7 years ago on a project called the Rural Safety Initiative which used mapping to help local residents work out what caused crime, anti-social behaviour and traffic accidents and to help them develop ways of reducing incidents.

We wanted to take the project online, but the Home Office back then couldn't find any money for it. It obviously might be a tad cheaper to do now.

It'll be interesting to see how the crime maps develop. What value does ward level have in preventing crime? I'm sure it would be useful in directing resources or holding police to account, but the most useful data would come out of the detail especially if local people could add to it themselves with unrecorded incidents (http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/2008/07/neighbourhood-w.html). It is those local people who will often spot the reasons for the problems as illustrated in the Free Our Data post: http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/?p=220

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