Today, Halifax Regional Police and Halifax District RCMP launched the HRM Crime Mapping site to provide citizens with contextual and timely information about local crime.
HRM Crime Mapping, http://maps.halifax.ca/crimemapping/, is an interactive site which is updated daily at 12:15 a.m. with incidents of five specific crime types – robberies, assaults, break and enters, thefts of vehicles and thefts from vehicles. These crime types were selected given that citizens can take steps to protect themselves from becoming a victim if armed with information about what’s happening in our community.
HRM Crime Mapping allows citizens to view the selected crime types one at a time, several at a time or altogether by three different time frames – yesterday, the past four days and the past week. It also allows citizens to search crime types by street name or community. To ensure people’s privacy, crimes are plotted on the mid-point of the closest block and are not associated with any specific civic address.
The site also provides links to HRP and RCMP’s social media sites, websites and crime prevention information.
“This project relates directly to the Roundtable on Violence, during which citizens requested more contextual and timely information about crime in our community so they can make informed decisions about their own safety and strive to prevent crime,” said Deputy Chief Bill Moore of Halifax Regional Police. “As part of the response to the Roundtable, our former Public Safety Officer brought the idea of crime mapping forward.”
Employees in the HRP Strategic Technology Unit and HRM Information Technology made HRM Crime Mapping a reality for our citizens. HRM Crime Mapping is based on the crime mapping program from the city of Naples, Florida which provided HRM with crime mapping technology to assist in the creation of the HRM site.
HRM Crime Mapping is a pilot project and it is our expectation that community feedback will assist in shaping the site in future. Feedback can be sent by email to contacthrp@halifax.ca.
