Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki and Police Chief Robert Tracy have unveiled a new online crime mapping program that is available immediately to citizens so they will have another tool to keep track of crime and Wilmington’s ongoing efforts to reduce crime.
The mayor and chief said www.CrimeMapping.com. will augment the City’s current efforts to keep the public informed and engaged in creating a safer City through the current Compstat online reports, which were made available beginning in February at bit.ly/WilmDECompStat.
Purzycki and Chief Tracy said that when added to the weekly, monthly and year-to-date crime data offered by Compstat, &nbs p;residents will have a greater understanding of what’s happening in their neighborhoods and throughout the city. They also said the new online information will further the department’s efforts to be more transparent and accountable to citizens.
The new crime mapping service is a web-based program developed by TriTech Software Systems to help law enforcement agencies provide the community with information about recent crime activity in and around their neighborhoods. The Wilmington Police Department is paying TriTech a nominal fee to enable Wilmington citizens to participate in the &nbs p;program.
The data for the Wilmington-specific portion of www.CrimeMapping.com is extracted from the WPD’s records system on a regular basis, allowing citizens to view up to six months of crime data, or up to 1,000 records by various search categories. These include a date range, crime type, or distance of an incident from a specific address.
The data is illustrated on a map and the various crimes are shown as icons, each containing general details of the incident. The site also provides links to other useful crime prevention resources such as the WPD’s Facebook page and website, and Delaware Crime Stoppers.
Tracy said the new website service will also send custom alerts to citizens about updated crime data.
