Spartanburg Herald-Journal |
Article published June 22, 2009
New program tracks crime click by clickWeb program in county maps sites, offers detailsBy Craig Peterscraig.peters@shj.com How many burglaries have been reported in the neighborhood? Where was that robbery or drug bust?
How it works
Log in to www.crimereports.com and select Spartanburg County from the map or type an address. A link can also be accessed from the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office Web site, www.spartanburgso.org. Criminal activity can be sorted by crime, date or distance from the address. Set the period, select types of crime or pinpoint a specific area. Pop-up bubbles will populate on a map that has zoom-in and zoom-out capabilities and can be moved around on the screen. Click on different pop-up bubbles and learn general vicinity, type and date of a crime, as well as the distance from the address that has been typed. Criminal activity in Spartanburg County now can be tracked by residents with Internet access to a third-party site that maps and provides basic details of offenses. The Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office and Spartanburg County Detention Facility provide information from their records departments that is posted on www.crimereports.com. Filters block victim information and specific addresses, but Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Tony Ivey and Spartanburg County Detention Facility Director Larry Powers said the information that is provided will empower current and potential residents and other law enforcement agencies. "We feel like we are now able to provide citizens with information they have asked about over the years," Ivey said. "They can log on 24 hours a day and get a fairly accurate snapshot of what's going on in the community." Ivey said the agencies started the service on a trial basis about three months ago, and they were pleased with its functions. The Web site provides general vicinity (i.e. 200 block Main Street), type of crime (murder, assault, burglary, theft, etc.) and date of the offense. The site also calculates the distance from the address the user has chosen, be it their home, workplace or other selection. Powers said his agency has been looking at mapping options for a while, and this service was selected because it provides helpful information at a low cost without identifying victims. The sheriff's office and jail were only billed for one Spartanburg County account, and the cost of the service was about $1,200 for a year, depending on volume. The software takes information from jail records, so arrests made in municipalities inside the county also are displayed even though those municipalities do not have the service. Spartanburg County and the Easley Police Department are the only two agencies in South Carolina that use the service. Spartanburg Public Safety Capt. Randy Hardy said city police are considering the service. He said police "looked at it and liked it." Ivey said the sheriff's office hopes the service will be incorporated by other agencies to further improve communication and supplement their own record keeping and mapping systems."The program is not designed to take the place of our own system," he said. "It's a tool for the public."
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