Local crime data now available online

Lori Prichard reporting Beginning today, 15 law enforcement agencies in Utah will make their crime databases available to you--from rapes to robberies and DUIs to domestic violence. But will you be able to trust the information is accurate?

It's a free service. All you do is type in your address and up pops a map with descriptions of what types of crime happened and when. Advocates say it's a way to keep residents aware of what's going on around them, but critics say law enforcement could downplay the severity of crimes to keep residents calm and voters happy.

It's a key tool used by law enforcement: collecting data on high-crime areas and relentlessly targeting those areas to keep crime low.

Eyewitness News was in New Orleans 10 years ago when it began there. "The most crucial thing in the plan is accountability on everybody's part for performance," explained Terry Ebbert, of the New Orleans Police Foundation.

Now, that accountability has moved mainstream and online. "By using pinpoint crime mapping they had cut the violent crime rate in half," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said.

That was in New Orleans then. Today, citing the Big Easy as an example of crime reporting, state and local leaders announced Utahns from Park City to Salt Lake City and beyond can hold officers accountable simply by knowing, even within 24 hours, when crime is happening. Or will they?

"There can be a rationale for a small agency, in particular, to say, ‘Gee, we're not very effective on crime' and manipulate data. Now, I hope that that doesn't occur, but it's a risk and one that the public needs to be aware of," Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said.

So will that risk of crime data manipulation carry over to what residents see online? "You're dead on. If a city decides to splinter off and participate in this, and they want to filter their data to appear more protective, more responsive, there's that risk," Winder said.

That risk comes from pressure to under-report crime so crime fighting efforts seem to be working. "There must be a trust factor between citizens and law enforcement agencies, a trust factor that the data is going to be presented appropriately and interpreted as accurately as possible, whether good or bad," Winder said.

To really make all of this work, that police data needs to be accurate. Basically, the police data is transmitted to crime reports where they upload it every 24 hours. If the data is wrong, then it's up to law enforcement to fix it.

The cost is free to you because the state is paying. It comes down to a little more than $100,000 a year.

To check out crime in your area click the related link.

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