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Friday, September 25, 2009

Anchorage Crime Map

I got an email from my state representative Berta Gardner with a link to the community crime map of Anchorage. Actually, it turns out to be a US wide crime map, but you can focus in on Anchorage and even within 500 feet, .2 miles, .5 miles, 1 mile, and 2 miles around any selected address. And the map is pretty good - it even shows the road all the way up to Glen Alps.

Here's a screen shot I took of an area south of Tudor and Lake Otis.

The crime types tab (upper left) above shows you what all the icons represent. It would be nice if you could see that just by doing a mouse over.

You can check out each icon to get a pop up with the location (down to the block, not address).

It took me a while to figure out how to get rid of the pop up description of the crime - just hit the blue "Zoom in!"

The email said, in part,


Today APD announced that we can sign up for email updates. With this new tool, we will be able to see the types of crimes committed and in the exact locations.
The service is updated on a daily basis and is free.

Do I really want to know where all the crimes were reported every day? I'm not sure. I guess it's there if I want it and more information is generally better than less. Will this make us feel more safe? Or less safe? Not sure.
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3 comments:

  1. Jakob Dugan-BrauseFriday, September 25, 2009 at 10:24:00 PM AKDT

    Less, Steve. Less.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSaturday, September 26, 2009 at 5:30:00 AM AKDT

    Oh, these net maps are very precise. I could find my home on Google Map. It was not very sharp but I could see it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSaturday, September 26, 2009 at 5:23:00 PM AKDT

    This seems to be a second crime map, via a commercial (contracted? site). I haven't had a chance to compare with the other map that I discussed last April Where are… crime maps? « Grassroots Science. In Los Angeles, there were seeming problems because of how the software handled data which could be characterized as "miscellaneous". Anchorage did a better job designing their database.

    More safe? Maybe. I find it useful to characterize my risks-- for example, if crimes against persons occur near where I work, but only at night, I know I have a safer work situation. If I am trying to find a place to rent, I would want to know the number of disturbances and or break ins over a year at the complex.

    ReplyDelete

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