The Charlottesville Police Department is mapping all crime reports, CBS-19 reports. Their CrimeView website allows people to map selected classes of crimes over selected a period in selected parts of the city, which means that citizens can keep tabs on trends in a way that would not otherwise be possible. Particularly useful is the “CyberWatch” feature, which allows you to enter your e-mail address, location, and a radius, which will e-mail you to notify you of any crimes reported within that area. (Albemarle County already provides a very similar service by having CrimeReports.com syndicate their data.) Unfortunately, the resulting maps can’t be embedded on other websites and also lack unique URLs, so you can’t share the output, which really limits its utility, but it’s still a big improvement.
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