Crime Maps – What Do We need to Know?

In July last year the Home Secretary announced that every neighbourhood in England and Wales should have access to the latest local crime information through new interactive crime maps.

With this information made available, people can be better informed about crime problems in their area and have more of a say in what their local police focus on. In this way communities can engage better with policing in their neighbourhoods and help make them safer.

I accept the thinking behind this initiative and was pleased to learn last year that Lancashire Constabulary had taken a lead by making crime maps available through the County Council’s MARIO mapping service. The example here shows vehicle theft figures in the area based on my constituency office in Nelson.

However, I do have some concerns. Lancashire’s maps for the public only show information at Ward level and I wonder how much use that is, as each ward has at least 1100 households and many have twice that number. In Greater London the information is made available on a much smaller scale. But could that lead to identification of individuals and to victimisation?

Other questions arise, such as what sort of crimes should be included? How reliable are the figures? I shall be following this issue closely and would be interested to hear your views.