SpotCrime Keeps You On The Right Side of The Tracks

SpotCrime is a mashup that plots recent criminal activity onto Google Maps, allowing users to shy away from seedier parts of towns they may not be familiar with. Crimes are depicted as small icons according to the type of incident, and users can filter crimes over a certain date range or time period. Clicking on an icon brings up more detailed information (when available). The site currently supports only a select number of (mostly large) cities, but it says that it is expanding quickly. SpotCrime draws approximately 90% of its data from local police records, and, in cities where that information isn’t released, they gather it from local news sources. While most of this involves data scraping, SpotCrime says there there is still a human element required - something that will become increasingly problematic as the company grows. Incidents typically take 3-24 hours to show up in the system, so SpotCrime isn’t useful for avoiding crimes in progress. It does, however, provide a nice visual representation of criminal activity. SpotCrime says that they are offering the service as a free tool to both police stations and the general population.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/21/spotcrime-keeps-you-on-the-right-side-of-the-tracks/