Monday, Jul. 13, 2009

Fairview Heights Web site offers e-mail alerts, mapping service of reported crimes

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS -- The Fairview Heights Police Department is the first in the metro-east to offer residents free access to an automated alert and mapping service of reported crimes in the city.

"It's a new technology that allows us to update the information that goes out to the public every day," Chief Ed Delmore said. "It's a way for people in the community to see what is and what is not going on around them."

For example, a motorist who observes a concentration of police cars in a particular intersection may now find out what happened almost instantly at www.crimereports.com.

Public Engines, which operates the private Web site, also has teamed up with police departments in other cities in the country, from San Jose, Calif., to Washington, D.C., to provide crime data for those areas.

Missouri cities that report crimes to the Web site include Hazlewood, Kirkwood and Maryland Heights. Other Illinois cities using the site include Chicago, Itasca, Plainfield, Roselle and Waukegan.

The data is updated nightly, but the public can access the Web site at any time to view a list and map of reported crimes over the last 30 days.

Residents may opt to sort the information by location, date, distance and crime type -- such as homicides, assaults or theft. A list of sex offenders in a specified area also is available.

The site will provide details of the crime and information on anyone who was arrested in connection with the crime. The crime data will include the incident type, date, location, distance from specified address, event identification or case number and a brief description of the crime.

Another services allows people to register their e-mail address to receive alerts of crimes -- daily, weekly or monthly -- near an address they specify. For example, one may wish to sign up for alerts of crimes near their home, office or school.

Another feature is the "analytics" tab, which graphs the data to show trends in the frequency and types of crimes committed in a specified area or time period.

The monthly fee for the crime reporting service is about $49 for universities, $99 for agencies serving fewer than 50,000 citizens and $199 for agencies serving more than 50,000 citizens, according to the Public Engines Web site.

The Fairview Heights Police Department is paying about $400 monthly, which will cover additional services not accessible by the public, Delmore said.

"There's the nonpublic side to the data that we will have access to that will give us much more detail about where things are happening and where we should deploy our resources," Delmore said.

Delmore said the crime reporting system will be more timely and efficient than the traditional police blotter, which is available at www.fairviewpd.org.

"In years past, what would have been done manually by a detective putting push pins into a map, this computer software now performs that function automatically," Delmore said.

Lt. John Proffitt said the system will save the police department hours of investigative and research time.

"In the past, we would have to have a detective go through reports and manually extrapolate the information and plot it," Proffitt said. "Now this does it within seconds."

The city officially signed on to the service June 23 after a 30-day test run, Proffitt said. Since the launch, the service has helped Fairview Heights officers identify several hot spots of criminal activity, such as vehicle burglaries.