CrimeView Community
Berkeley Police Offer Online Crime
Database
MICHAEL KAY / Daily Californian /
UC Berkeley 28feb2006
Screen shot of CrimeView
/ Berkeley Police Department
Mindfully.org
note:
The City of Berkeley is short
on cash and yet spends about $100,000 on a crime tracking system —
essentially a toy — that will possibly benefit realtors in their efforts
to sell highly over-priced houses. Meanwhile, in spite of those monetary
shortfalls and police spending on toys, libraries are closed more often
than not. The library's RFID "book tracking" system also cost
even more — $650,000
initial payment, plus . . . lots of operating expense.
What bothers us more than the
monetary costs of these technologies are the other costs: social, psychological,
and so much more. We've become obsessed with keeping tabs on everything
from books
to cars; children
and animals.
Everywhere one looks we are surveilled
by closed circuit cameras. Where are we going with all this stuff? Does
anyone think about the fact that it's getting to be like living in the
movie "The Terminator"? The Governator of California must
love it all. |
A new Internet service that allows anyone with an Internet connection to
track the locations of recent crimes in Berkeley was unveiled last week by the
Berkeley Police Department.
The Community Crime View program, launched on Feb. 22 and available on the
police department's Web site, provides a map-based database of offenses ranging
from burglary to violent crime.
All reported crimes will be recorded into the program, and will be updated
accordingly as incidents occur, said Berkeley police Officer Ed Galvan.
"We're hoping that we'll be within two- to three-day (updates) when it
gets running 100 percent," he said.
Approximately 400 police departments in the United States and Canada use
CrimeView Community, the software used in Berkeley's program, said Trip
Albagdadi, director of marketing at The Omega Group, which designed the
software.
San Francisco and Oakland also use crime-tracking programs, but in the
overall Bay Area, few agencies use such software, Galvan said.
The program software had to go through significant customization and be
integrated with the agency's current systems, along with staff training, which
delayed the program's implementation for three years, Galvan said.
In total, the Berkeley program probably cost the city between $50,000 and
$100,000, Albagdadi said.
Neither the Berkeley Police Department nor the city's finance department
could provide a more specific figure.
The program contains far more features than the only other map of Berkeley
crime on the Web, which is run by a New Hampshire-based group using Google Maps
and data feeds to provide a similar but more basic service at
www.incidentlog.com.
Users of the new system can now search for either a single crime type, such
as automobile theft, or multiple types in one search.
Currently, the only crimes in the database are those that occurred starting
at the end of November, but the service will eventually contain 180 days' worth
of crime statistics at any given time, Galvan said.
Users can also search for crimes by location, which could make this service
highly valued among real estate agents.
Remax Realtor Carol Serkes said it could prove a great boon to prospective
home buyers.
"I'd love to have a resource like that because then I could refer people
to it," she said.
source: http://www.dailycal.org/printable.php?id=21316
1mar2006
