UPDATE: Erin in the comments points to another campus crime mashup that pulls info from police department databases: Crimereports.com
I received an e-mail last week from Colin Drane, who has created a campus crime mapping site called Ucrime.com.
From the press release:
The service is free to members of the public. It allows students, parents, administrators, public safety officials and others to view reported crime activity on an easy to use map. Information is available on the date, time, event type and location of a crime. Users can sign up to receive alerts automatically via email if a crime occurs near a selected school or schools. Alerts can be sent to desktop computers and mobile devices, including iPhones. UCrime.com is also available on Facebook.
Not sure exactly how they are inputting the information, but it might be a useful source for checking out crime around campus. I’ll also note that they are apparently pulling information from college media outlets.
But I wouldn’t rely on it as a primary source, if for no other reason than the disclaimer on the site’s front page:
Ucrime.com Disclaimer: The data made available here has been modified for use from its original source. Neither Ucrime.com nor our data sources make any claims as to the completeness, accuracy or content of any data contained in this application; makes any representation of any kind, including, but not limited to, warranty of the accuracy or fitness for a particular use; nor are any such warranties to be implied or inferred with respect to the information or data furnished herein. The data is subject to change as modifications and updates are complete. It is understood that the information contained in the web feed is being used at one’s own risk.
Actually, most journalistic enterprises do care about the accuracy of their information and I’ve never seen a disclaimer like that on any news site I’ve been to. Imagine reading that at the New York Times’ web site.
on Aug 18th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Just because you don’t see disclaimers like that displayed prominently on news sites doesn’t mean that they don’t apply. Realistically, not a single news organization — even the NYT — has the resources to fact-check things like crime databases.
on Aug 18th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Actually, most crime reporting comes from official police arrest reports and the like. Sure, they don’t always fact-check the arrest report any farther, but there is an implication that the information is accurate as to the official source.
And most of this information is apparently coming from newspaper crime reports (either written or in a database), and so the newspaper puts its credibility behind the accuracy of their reporting.
on Aug 19th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
A site you may want to check out is www.crimereports.com. CrimeReports shows what kind of crime is happening in citizen/student areas but the difference between UCrime and CrimeReports is that CrimeReports gets direct data feeds from the law enforcement agencies every day! The data on CrimeReports.com is fresh and straight from the horses mouth. Of course, there is a disclaimer on this site too because the data can change/be updated regularly - thus why it is updated on a daily basis. The major uinversities currently using CrimeReports include San Jose State, Georgia Tech, UC-Davis, University of Utah, and Brigham Young University. And over 250 police agencies across the US use Crime Reports as well.
Let me know if you have any questions or need additional information about CrimeReports services.