Cornwall makes online crime reporting easy

If you want to do an initial scan of the crime landscape in Cornwall with the data displayed in a visual, graphical and statistical format, then online crime reporting application Cornwall Crime Explorer is the key. Amethyst, the information hub for the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) in Cornwall, has launched this free online tool to report crime statistics at a local level as a way of meeting the needs of public sector partners and citizens.

Cornwall Crime Explorer offers such data as the total number of crime incidents and the crime rate for a number of offences for each local authority ward in the county. The information on the site is updated every quarter.

The online representation of Cornwall is interactive and easy to use. The website’s mapping and statistics allow users to review and compare crime statistics at a very local level. Carefully considered crime groupings give insights into the nature, type and level of Cornish crime.

Key advantages include the ability to discover the levels of crime for any area of interest simply by clicking on one of the wards on the map; to compare patterns of crime types across all 121 wards in Cornwall and with the county average; and to understand how crime is changing by comparing trends.

Data is presented in tables, charts and maps on a single page for easy interpretation. Cornwall Crime Explorer also facilitates real-time user interaction and is a suitable model for data exploration. The commentary, taken directly from static reports, is embedded in a context-sensitive manner that aids understanding of the data. The site maintains its crime statistics using Excel.

Detailed background mapping, courtesy of Amethyst’s agreement with the Ordnance Survey, provides a geographic context to the thematic mapping. Illustrating the evolution from crime mapping to visual crime reporting, the site also aims to promote good practice in crime reporting for police forces and public safety agencies. The data is aggregated into areas to avoid privacy issues.

Cornwall Crime Explorer is a collaborative effort between Amethyst and software supplier GeoWise. It leverages Amethyst’s experience in crime mapping, sound statistical practices and the data visualisation principles common to business intelligence dashboards. GeoWise’s InstantAtlas visualisation software helps information analysts and data professionals to create and manage interactive web applications that improve the management and visualisation of statistical data, and engage people in more informed geography-based decision-making.

According to Amethyst: “The Amethyst reporting platform is a strong mechanism for disseminating community safety information, engaging with partners and supporting the auditing and analytical requirements for the CDRP. We wanted to provide a ‘living report’ online that users could personalise.”

There are around 370 CDRPs in England and Wales with a responsibility to develop and implement local strategies to tackle crime and disorder including anti-social behaviour and drugs misuse. While, the CDRPs are under no obligation to share and publish their data, Cornwall Crime Explorer showcases best practice on data sharing and dissemination and community engagement.

Amethyst is also considering hosting other community safety datasets. It may not be long before anti-social behaviour cases and data on multiple deprivation using recorded crime statistics are put into a broader context online.

Archana Venkatraman is a reporter for IWR

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