Online crime maps are nothing new. The UK police has them, and the US is served by several sites, including some like Family Watchdog that feature specific details of offenders, including photos and addresses. Nevertheless, crime maps are always interesting to examine, because as examples of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) they raise many ITGS social and ethical issues, including privacy and integrity.
Trulia’s interactive crime map is the latest one I have discovered, and has a number of interesting features. Crimes are shown on a street by street, block by block level, using a simple “heatmap” technique: with dark green representing 0-25 incidents per month, all the way up to red for 255 or more incidents per month. Results can be filtered for different crime types, including shootings, arson, theft, and vandalism, while a graph shows the time of day each crime is committed.
Armed with that information, you can click the handy links to find homes for rent or sale in the immediate area…
Via SmartPlanet.com
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