Decatur Joins CrimeReports.com
Decatur Metro | May 13, 2009
In an effort to disseminate crime information to residents more quickly, this morning Chief Booker announced that the city of Decatur has joined the website CrimeReports.com, which maps various crimes around the city. According to Chief Booker, the site will be updated every night, so the data is very up-to-date.
CrimeReports also allows you to sign up for daily/weekly/monthly email alerts on self-selected crimes in your area.
This should be a great new resource for Decatur residents. Hopefully it won’t make people completely neurotic.
Ah, the double-edge sword of information.
Read Chief Booker’s full email after the jump…
We have talked with members of the community who have offered valued suggestions about improving communications between the police department and community. We have tried to incorporate many of these suggestions and hope the changes will be beneficial to all.
We recognize that the information contained in our monthly reports is often “time sensitive” and needs to be disseminated as quickly as possible. We are now using Crimereports.com a website that is updated every night to reflect crimes that have occurred in the City of Decatur. The site provides maps showing various types of crimes including robberies, burglaries, and thefts that have occurred within our city limits. You may review the website at any time and see what has occurred on the streets of Decatur. You may also sign up for an email alert list that will provide an email advisory regarding various crimes that have occurred on your street or in your neighborhood.
We will continue sending out “NEWS ALERTS” as needed. These news alerts will advise residents of things to be on the lookout for and will be primarily sent to neighborhood associations for dissemination.
We hope these changes are beneficial to you and would appreciate any suggestions you have for any future improvements.
Sincerely,
J.M. Booker
Police Chief
City of Decatur
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“This should be a great new resource for Decatur residents. Hopefully it won’t make people completely neurotic.
Ah, the double-edge sword of information.”
And how. My first reaction was, “Great!” followed almost immediately by, “great…”
Hellooooo sleepless nights.
I definitely am not thrilled to know there was a rape .5 miles away on May 10th. I didn’t see anything in the AJC about that. Scary! Looks like that was right around downtown Oakhurst.
Another ‘cool’ followed by ‘gulp’ reaction here. And color me naive but there seem to be a lot of incidents.
One of my favorite things about living in Decatur is that you can call the police department, ask them questions, and get prompt answers from smart, friendly people. If you’re worried about the dot on the map next to your house, call and ask.
It’s night-and-day different from APD — which illegally forces newspapers to file state Open Records Act requests just to access public info.
For example: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/05/12/cop_shooting_victim.html
The crime mapping is a great help. My husband and I are looking for a home in Decatur/Oakhurst area…however, we expanded our search to include Avondale and East Atlanta. So, not being as familiar with these areas, I started looking for crime stats. Dekalb Co. participates in crimemapping.com: http://www.crimemapping.com/map/ga/dekalbcounty
Indeed there is some crime in Decatur and Oakhurst, but if you want a real eye-opener, try this link to see what is going on in the greater Dekalb Co. area related to crime….just outside our little nest.
This gives us just one more reason to love Decatur/Oakhurst!
Exactly the kind of thing I’m worried about.
People will see “Rape/Criminal Attempt” (whatever that the heck that means) and assume that someone was randomly sexually assaulted on a street corner. While certainly no less despicable, a majority of the sexual assault crimes are domestic in nature, which only means that the general public should feel like they have a bit more control over a similar situation occurring to them – as opposed to being victim of a random act (everyone’s greatest fear.)
I can’t speak to the specifics of this case, I just urge people not to jump to conclusions…though it’s hard with such specific locational, yet descriptively vague data.
Sorry, chad, but the number of incidents is small in comparison to a similar piece of geography in Atlanta or DeKalb County. The site lets you look at other communities that use the same website – check a comparison to those.
This discussion is interesting because there are always people who ask “why aren’t the police telling us about this-or-that crime” and complain about the perceived lack of information. Now we have easy access to the information (we always did before, we just had to ask), and people are going to complain about that.
Don’t be hyper or neurotic, just be careful.
It actually looks like a lot less incidents that I would have thought.
You’re right DM. The two rapes in Decatur in 2008 were both “acquaintance on acquaintance.”
http://www.decatur-ga.com/cgs_citysvcs_pspolice_statistics.aspx
(See 2008 crime analysis)
Hmmmm. I just looked in Morningside and Va-Hi; the incidents w/in a similar radius are actually much fewer than in Decatur. That’s very surprising! And a bit troubling, if I’m being honest…but I refuse to allow myself to spiral into paranoia. *Thinking optimistic thoughts*
Well, that’s interesting, considering that Atlanta PD is not a member of the crimereports.com website. What data were you looking at?
The City of Atlanta doesn’t participate, so, of course, when you type in an address with a VA-Hi or Morningside address there are no reported crimes. But, of course, in reality, the crime rate is higher in those areas. The City of Atlanta just doesn’t want you to know that.
It does appear that Georgia Tech does participate, and it looks like there were far more crimes on the Georgia Tech campus in the past week than all of Decatur.