D.I.Y. Detective

One of the cooler things about the Chicago police’s big anti-​​crime data­base is that any beat cop can use it to track crim­i­nal pat­terns in his or her neigh­bor­hood — some­thing that only detec­tives could do a few years back. Now, with Google Maps and a slick lit­tle web­site called ChicagoCrime​.org, cit­i­zens can get in on the act, too.
The site lets you search and map every crime in the Windy City, by beat, by date, by felony, or by site — from alley­ways to ATMs to aban­doned build­ings. The searches take a few sec­onds. And they come with a handy map of the infrac­tions, so you know where to watch your neck.
The whole thing kinda reminds me of what CPD Commander Jim Keating told me a few months back about his database:

“Before, it would take six to eight months to develop a set of con­tacts in your dis­trict. And we had to rely on the detec­tives to put together the pat­terns,” Keating says. “Now, it’s click, click, click, and we have it all city­wide… It slaps me in the face, how much infor­ma­tion we have.” (via Boing Boing)

May 20th, 2005 | Cops and Robbers | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.