Last week there was a story in the Oak Ridge, TN news outlet OakRidger.com that covered Oak Ridge Police rolling out a crime mapping application to their community. Oak Ridge PD is using RAIDS Online to display crime information to citizens. In the piece ORPD's Chief Jim Akagi was quoted:
The chief said the program is another way “to inform the public, to let them make informed decisions and show the people we are transparent.” He said the mapping might also show the public that “criminal activity is not that bad in Oak Ridge.”We use RAIDS Online here in the sleepy little burg where I work. I've previously written about Why Public Crime Mapping Is Important for law enforcement. It's very important for law enforcement agencies to be transparent about the crimes that occur in their community if they are going to enlist the public's help in making their communities safer.
Recently Bair Analytics made improvements to RAIDS Online by moving their underlying mapping technology to one provided by mapping industry leader ESRI. This added a number of new data layers that can be added to maps to help people better understand the crime in their community.
What is your agency doing to communicate crime information to the public you serve?
