Crime Goes Online

Website enables residents to see stats on a street by street level

A new website, launched this week by the Home Office, enables residents to see crime statistics on a street by street level.

www.police.uk provides links to all wards within Chiswick with interactive maps detailing the number and type of crimes and anti-social behaviour both within the immediate area around your home and by street by using a simple postcode search.

The system, which was developed by the National Policing Improvement Agency for the Home Office, will be updated on a monthly basis.

Mary Macleod MP, said: “The street-level crime maps provide local communities with transparent information. By providing crime data in an open format that anyone can access, even from their mobile, we can all hold the police to account. We can ensure they deal with the issues that actually matter to us locally, not those decided by a Whitehall bureaucrat”.

Home Secretary Theresa May said people had lost confidence in national crime figures, and the maps would give real facts and make police more accountable.

Information is broken down into six categories - burglary, robbery, vehicle crime, violence, other crime and anti-social behaviour. Sex crimes have been included in the "other" category, along with crimes such as theft and shoplifting, to help prevent victims from being identified.

Local police appeals and details of police community meetings will also be published alongside the maps. Crime trends will also be established as the site develops and could be extended to include details on the outcomes of court cases, or a system for individual victims to track the progress of their case online.

The government said the site was an important part of its "transparency agenda", making the data available in an open format so that communities could use it to "help people engage with the police in a meaningful way".

February 4, 2011