A deeper understanding of crime patterns empowers individuals to make informed decisions, contribute to community safety initiatives and foster a sense of collective responsibility. Analyzing local crime involves researching and deciphering data, which can provide insights into a variety of issues including seasonality or long-term trends.
Public perceptions of crime are often shaped at the local level, and can be overshadowed by aggregate fears based on sensationalized media coverage of high-profile crimes. Whether or not those fears are grounded in fact, the persistence of crime at certain locations may influence residents’ feelings of safety over time.
Local crime data is often reported on a neighborhood-level, and can be accessed through police agencies’ websites or commercial crime forecasts that provide reports for specific neighborhoods, zip codes or call-for-service zones. Police agencies also frequently report crime incident data to the FBI, which is available for inspection via the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer.
A slew of local crime mapping software is available from various providers, most of which are free or inexpensive, and many offer real-time updates on reported incidents in a given jurisdiction. This information can be useful when assessing crime risks at your location, especially for those that deal with goods and services such as hotels and restaurants. For example, this map of New York City crime incidents color-codes neighborhoods by their homicide rates, and provides an easy way to view crime data for any particular area. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that some crime maps may not include all reported incidents and are often not updated in real-time.
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