Looking for a new house or apartment in San Jose?
The city's police department has unveiled one more tool to help in the hunt: new crime-mapping software on its Web site that pinpoints reports down to the city block.
The software, developed by the firm Public Engines of Salt Lake City and launched this weekend, replaces a service that was much less comprehensive. Previously, citizens could access some crime data, including dates and times of reports, but they could view only broad maps of the city, divided by patrol areas.
Now, citizens can see the status of a report, such as whether an arrest was made or if an investigation is continuing or was dropped. And, with more detailed mapping, they also can zero in on an area as small as a one-mile radius of their home or school. Icons on the map show where robberies, vehicle thefts, sexual assaults and other crimes are being reported.
San Jose is one of a handful of cities across the United States, and in the Bay Area, to offer this type of detailed and easy-to-access information.
"We needed to get into the 21st century," Police Chief Rob Davis said at a news conference Monday. "This system can put better information in the hands of citizens and in the hands of police officers to do a better job."
He added, "People are always asking us to share with them what's happening in their neighborhoods. This is a response, and it will help us keep pace in the face of our staffing shortage."
On the site - (citizens can either go directly to www.crimereports.com or follow a link from wwww.sjpd.org - a column next to the map notes the date, time and "block" location of a crime report, as well as its identifier number. Officers' written reports are not available online, but residents can go to the police department and seek more information by using the identifier number, Davis said.
The software also allows residents to receive automatic "alerts" via e-mail when crimes are reported near their homes or schools. The information in those alerts is available for up to 30 days.
The database is updated every day at 1 a.m. with the roughly 1,500 crime reports generated daily throughout the city. Sharp-eyed citizens may notice something peculiar about a small fraction of those reports: They come up "on the 200 block of West Mission Street" - the police department's address.
So, is crime happening at, of all places, the police station?
Not to worry, Davis said. It's because the site shows where the crime was reported, not necessarily where it happened. And some people, instead of calling the cops, he said, simply prefer to come down to the station.
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