Seattle police launched a public website Wednesday that allows citizens to track crime data and trends in their neighborhoods.
The crime dashboard is part of a platform of technological tools the department has implemented this year to use data for more effective policing. Click here to see the Seattle police crime dashboard website.
"You can see exactly what crimes are occurring in your neighborhood," said Mike Wagers, the chief operating officer of the Seattle Police Department. "We bring it down to that granular level. So it's just not about crime is down 11 percent across the city. You can see whether it's up or down in your particular neighborhood."
The site is also viewable on mobile phones.
The most recent data published is for the previous month. The site is still a work in progress, and Wagers said the public is welcome to give feedback. He said one day they may get to the point of posting real-time information, the way police analysts see it at headquarters.
That in-house dashboard, called the Real Time Crime Center, launched earlier in the summer. Analysts can see incident calls, their priority level, and where the resources are spread across the city to respond to them. New information coming in for each incident is updated on a wall-sized map, every six seconds.
Wagers also showed where one can see the threshold set for the number of units available to respond to each level of crime.
"If you reach a threshold, that commander is going to make a decision about, 'am I shifting resources between these different priority calls?'" Wagers said.
Analysts sit at the back of the room and are able to use the platform to send new research on a suspect or car, for example, to officers in the field.
"This is the type of data we need to help develop better strategies," Wagers said.
While the public cannot see what analysts are viewing at police headquarters, citizens can now log onto the public dashboard site to view trends. One can dissect the information down to the specific type of crime across time, and across 57 different neighborhoods.
"One of the priorities of the police department is to continue to enhance public trust," Wagers said. "We do that through being as transparent as possible."
KIRO
