MILL CREEK — With only an address, the public can look up areas in Mill Creek to discover not only which areas are marked with crime, but the types of crimes and how often they occur.
The Mill Creek Police Department signed up with CrimeReports.com, a website where a Google map pops up showing where crimes have occurred, block by block. In Mill Creek, the data is automatically updated at 6 a.m. daily. Specific addresses aren’t provided.
“Anything in there is public information,” Police Chief Bob Crannell said.
The Utah-based CrimeReports.com, launched in 2007, is an online resource offering up-to-date crime data for nearly 800 law enforcement agencies nationwide. Residents can access the data for free at www.crimereports.com. Law enforcement agencies are charged $100 to $200 per month based on the size of the agency, according to a 2008 USA Today article.
The information provided on the website helps residents make better decisions for themselves, said Scott Kinzie, senior vice president of marketing and product strategy.
“I’m a firm believer that information is power,” Kinzie said. “This is a relatively inexpensive way to share data with the people they serve directly to make better decisions for themselves to feel safer.”
The Mill Creek Police Department has been using CrimeReports.com since mid-March and pays $100 per month.
The department joined the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department, which signed up at the beginning of the year for a one-year contract.
The website has been a tremendous tool for the county’s Neighborhood Watch groups, said Rebecca Hover, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.
Neighborhood Watch leaders can alert their neighbors about which types of crimes are occurring in their area and offer tips on how to not be victimized.
For sheriff’s office data, there is a 24-72 hour delay until information is posted on the CrimeReports.com map. County staff plan to have automatic updates available so residents can have access to the type of call and the block number once dispatch has cleared the call, Hover said.
In Mill Creek, signing up with the website is part of a department-wide effort to streamline record keeping. The current system is more than 10 years old. Crannell said the department is moving toward a record keeping program which will regionalize data. Snohomish County police, fire and jails will be able to go online to look at each department’s crime data all in one place.
Prospective homeowners call the station asking which neighborhoods and parks are the safest, but personnel can’t tell people where they should and should not move, Crannell said. With CrimeReports.com, the curious can see where officers responded to traffic, domestic violence and theft crimes, as examples.
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