We get lots of questions on crime statistics.
There are a plethora of sites across the web to find information on crime, but recently I discovered CrimeReports.com, which seems to be one of the better sites around for gleaning all sorts of information related to crime, traffic accidents, pedestrian stops, you name it – whatever the police are called out for, you can find it on CrimeReports.com (even deaths, which seems kind of creepy).
That is if your local police department subscribes to the service.
The site reports they currently have about 400 jurisdictions signed up, with more on the way. In Arizona, only Gilbert, Lake Havasu City, Show Low and Snowflake-Taylor are participating. (Yes, there really are towns in Arizona called Show Low and Snowflake.) California looks to be well covered. If you are residing in North Dakota or Vermont, you are out of luck for now.
Local Police Departments feed reports directly to the site, which are then displayed on a Google map with icons representing different crime categories. The user can zoom in and out of the map, and pick and chose different categories and date ranges to display.
Here’s a screen shot for Gilbert, AZ:
Clicking on each icon will reveal limited information about the “event” (of note, for privacy reasons no personally identifying information is displayed).
You can also sign up for an account (free) and set up alerts that will notify you of whatever crime types you select. I set one up using my address and told the system to send me weekly updates for anything reported within a mile of my home.
Pretty cool stuff.
How did I find out about this site / service?
Yep, that would be where some truck made an illegal left turn into Francy’s car to the tune of $3,123 and nine days in the body shop… Fortunately no one other than the Altima was hurt.
If the area you are thinking about buying a home in has a participating law enforcement agency, then CrimeReports.com is a nifty little site for investigating all sorts of stuff about your neighborhoods of interest.
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