Posts tagged ‘CrimeReports.com’
Today, CrimeReports has reached 1,000 fans on Facebook. It was slightly less than a month ago that we announced 500 fans, but thanks to our enthusiastic users, CrimeReports is growing like never before. We are extremely pleased to have so many supporters across the US and Canada who want to get involved in neighborhood crime prevention by working with their local law enforcement and using CrimeReports.
Thanks to everyone who has made this possible by spreading the word, talking to your neighbors, and working with local law enforcement to keep your neighborhoods safer.
Get even more information and links by following us on Twitter: @crimereports.
Search your neighborhood crime map at CrimeReports.com
September 11, 2009 at 10:34 am Robert Voccola
If you are already receiving free crime alerts and checking CrimeReports on a regular basis, you are already well informed about crime in your community. But now there are additional social media tools at your disposal to stay informed about your community and your personal crime prevention and safety strategies.
CrimeReports is now on Twitter. Go beyond the Neighborhood Crime Map and get additional stories and links to CrimeReports news, as well as issues in law enforcement and crime prevention. Follow us today at: https://twitter.com/crimereports
And, if you’re not already a fan, join us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Salt-Lake-City-UT/CrimeReportscom/61084693755?ref=ts
Search your neighborhood crime map at CrimeReports.com
September 4, 2009 at 11:22 am Robert Voccola
CrimeReports.com, the leader in online crime-mapping, today announced it has raised $7.2 million in a Series B financing led by Austin Ventures, one of the nation’s leading venture and growth equity firms, with participation from existing investor vSpring Capital. This investment will enable CrimeReports to further expand its position as a leader in the rapidly growing public safety software market, introducing innovative web 2.0 tools to increase communication and collaboration between law enforcement agencies and their constituents.
CrimeReports.com has defined itself as the leader in adapting emerging web 2.0 technologies to the needs of law enforcement agencies and has experienced significant growth in recent months, expanding its client base by almost 20% over the last two months. This growth is fueled by an unprecedented enthusiasm by law enforcement agencies across the country to adopt these new tools to engage their communities through online crime-mapping, targeted analysis and social media. This rapid adoption also relies on CrimeReports’ innovative SaaS business model and pricing structure, which make it the most affordable suite of crime-mapping, communication and analytics solutions available.
“We are pleased to announce this investment led by Austin Ventures,” said Greg Whisenant, founder and CEO of CrimeReports. “This will allow us to expand our products and services in the coming months, offering law enforcement agencies of all sizes and budgets the additional tools they need to effectively engage citizens and reduce crime using social media and web 2.0 technology.”
“This commitment indicates our confidence in the vision and relevance of CrimeReports. The company has developed innovative web solutions that fill a real need in today’s law enforcement community,” said Mike Dodd, Venture Partner at Austin Ventures and CrimeReports board member. “CrimeReports’ continued strong growth is evidence that the market is ready for new ways to approach crime data and citizen involvement.”
The CrimeReports network now publishes crime data for more than 500 law enforcement agencies across North America and, earlier this year, released Command Central, a powerful yet affordable crime analytics and visualization tool for law enforcement agencies. The additional funding will allow CrimeReports to expand the functionality of its current products and expand its offerings to address the growing demand within the law enforcement community to adopt cutting-edge web-based social networking tools.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
August 18, 2009 at 8:27 am Robert Voccola
Yesterday we just passed 500 fans on Facebook. We’ve only had the Facebook page up for a about 8 weeks, so we’re overjoyed that so many people are enthusiastic about their local crime prevention efforts and are using CrimeReports.com.
We want to thank every one of our law enforcement partners across the US and Canada and all the fans that have made our website the #1 crime-mapping website in the world.
Keep up your continued efforts to spread the word about CrimeReports.com, neighborhood watch efforts, and effective law enforcement/citizen communication and partnerships. And, as always, keep coming back here for more information on crime prevention, community involvement, and neighborhood watch.
If you aren’t already a fan, become a fan here.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
August 12, 2009 at 1:42 pm Robert Voccola
Google just announced some improvements to its popular mapping program, Google Maps. Google Maps now includes icons for landmarks, places of interest, and major businesses. In addition, many of the icons are clickable and will bring up a picture, address, phone number, and—possibly—a Wikipedia article.
This new feature of Google Maps is good news for CrimeReports.com users. The addition of the new location icons will make it easier to get a tangible sense of the location and proximity of crimes plotted on the CrimeReports map. This increased spatial awareness can lead to a better understanding of where crimes are happening in relation to physical landmarks and businesses.
Source: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-didnt-know-that-was-there.html
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
August 5, 2009 at 11:34 am Robert Voccola
We at CrimeReports are all very happy about our recent growth and our record-breaking month of June. Below is a press release highlighting our recent success and the law enforcement community’s forward-thinking views on sharing crime information with the public:
June represents a record-breaking month for CrimeReports.com, signing new partnerships with 49 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. These new partnerships represent close to a 10 percent growth for the world leader in online crime mapping in the last month. Currently, CrimeReports publishes live crime information for close to 500 law enforcement agencies across North America and is working with more than 50 others that will begin publishing their crimes live within the next 60 days.
CrimeReports’ rapid growth indicates a trend in law enforcement away from traditional weekly crime blotters and toward the use of online communication, including social media, to disseminate crime information more quickly and efficiently. As a result, publishing crime maps and providing crime alerts, like those provided by CrimeReports, is quickly becoming the standard for forward-thinking agencies across North America. “From a customer service perspective, let’s get that online so people can do their own analysis of what’s going on in the neighborhood,” said Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, discussing CrimeReports in a recent Boston Herald article.
Although there are other crime-mapping websites, few can boast partnerships with more than a few dozen agencies, whereas CrimeReports is signing up an average of 30 agencies a month. “Our growth has been astounding,” said Greg Whisenant, Founder and CEO of CrimeReports. “We started with one agency just two years ago, so our explosive growth really shows how law enforcement agencies have been hungry for a service like this and have been amazingly forward thinking in adopting it so quickly.”
In addition, CrimeReports’ internal-facing analytics tool, Command Central, is now being used by nearly 50 agencies nationwide and will expand further in the coming months.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Stumble It!
July 10, 2009 at 11:34 am Robert Voccola
Over the past few days, a number of articles have been published dealing with citizens’ perception of crime versus the actual crime data coming out of police departments. Overall, it seems that most people feel that crime is on the rise, even though most areas of the country are actually experiencing a drop in crime.
New York, LA, New Jersey, San Francisco, and other large populations centers are all experiencing a recent drop in crime that has largely gone unpublished in the media. In addition, there is a common-sense line of thinking that states that when the economy goes bad, crime goes up. However logical this may seem, there is actually no proven correlation between a bad economy and high crime rates. In fact, proving such a correlation is almost impossible because of the sheer amount of variables involved. But these factors go into the formation of public opinion that crime is on the rise, when the numbers actually contradict that assumption.
The Item published an interesting article recently about the fine line of reporting crime, basically asking the question: how do you balance giving the public the information they need without overplaying the amount of crime committed? Perhaps the solution lies in getting more information out to the public through tools like CrimeReports.com, Twitter, Facebook, and other internet and print-based media.
Is the perception of crime higher than the reality in your area? What can we do to change it? Leave a comment.
Sources:
Hudson Reporter
LA Times
Contra Costa Times
New York Daily News
The Item
Related Post: Bad Economy=More Crime?
Search crime in your area at CrimeReports.com
May 26, 2009 at 7:47 pm Robert Voccola
The introduction of email to our society has created a fast and cheap way for people to communicate with each other and spread information to the maximum number of people possible. But along with this great benefit comes the easy spread of false information that can be harmful to both individuals and businesses.
The Shelby County Reporter, of Shelby County Georgia, recently posted a story covering the dissemination of false crime reports through email. The story cites a few examples specifically, like the false report that a child had been molested at a local movie theater. This report, widely passed by email to local residents, hurt the theater and the shopping center it was a part of.
Now police are beginning to crack down on these false accusations and false crime reports. Recently a 26 year-old woman was arrested and convicted for making false reports to law enforcement when she circulated an email reporting fake assault at a local convenience store.
In a case where you receive an email reporting a crime about a local business or local resident, be sure to check the source before forwarding the message on to others. You can verify the crime by contacting your local police department or by checking services like CrimeReports.com. Sometimes these emails are fabricated only to hurt a local business or shame innocent citizens. If you cannot verify the source of the email (such as when the email is preceded by a long list of forwards) it is probably best to simply delete it rather than pass it on.
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
May 15, 2009 at 12:15 am Robert Voccola
Local San Francisco Designer Shawn Allen created the above map of San Francisco by overlaying the city’s cab routes with the location of trees in the city and local crime incidents pulled from CrimeReports.com.
I’m not sure the map is much use for anything, but it sure gives you an interesting and beautiful view of the city. You can read the full story at SF Weekly, as well as download a free high-resolution version of the map.
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
April 13, 2009 at 4:35 pm Robert Voccola
Middletown, New York’s police department just created a revamped website that pushes toward more transparency in policing. The new site has links to crime statistics, annual crime reports, three different ways to contact the PD and give tips, and is now using the new CrimeReports.com widget.
If you click on the Crime Mapping link, you’ll see a full version of CrimeReports embedded directly into the Middletown PD’s website. Now the transition from police department to CrimeReports is seamless, and citizens can search crime in their neighborhood without leaving the Middletown PD’s website.
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
April 7, 2009 at 4:30 pm Robert Voccola
The Neighborhood Crime Map 