I received an e-mail last night in which the author asked where the weekly crime maps had gone. It is nice to hear people look for these maps, and so here is the rest of the story...
We are now up and running with daily crime maps via SpotCrime.com. Here is a link to Lakeland's maps.
Our goal is to use this technology which now allows viewers to customize date ranges, time frames, and specific crime categories for what meets their individual needs. Rather than focus on one week at a time, viewers can look at one day or multiple date ranges (say the last month rather than the last week) to see broader trends. There is no need to wait for the weekly map to be posted. You can see the list of crime calls from yesterday - that's how fast we can get the data uploaded and available to you.
You can also sign up to receive crime alerts via e-mail. It is our hope this enhanced access to crime data will be much better than our previous weekly maps and more empowering to residents.
The other advantage to this new system is it is much less manpower intensive on us. In my book, better service to the community that requires less work by us is a win-win for all!
Please take a moment to visit the new crime maps on SpotCrime and give me your feedback. You may leave a comment here, send me an e-mail , or call me at the office (863-834-8989). Let us know what you think of the new maps!
- Asst Chief Bill LePere
Thanks for your comment Mike. You are absolutely correct in suggesting that we make more than one arrest per month! We typically average a couple hundred arrests each month. Having said that, it was never our goal to upload arrest data to SpotCrime, so the "arrest information" is not going to be accurate. I will have to look into this further to determine how we can remove the arrest search feature or add a disclaimer. Thanks again for catching this!
Posted by: Asst Chief Bill LePere | November 30, 2008 at 08:01 PM