The New York Police Department (NYPD) released an interactive crime map last weekend, in which users can view the locations and counts of seven major felony crimes. The NYPD noted that this was its first public crime mapping effort, and expressed the hope that it would improve public access to the critical information. The data, which is updated monthly, does not include granular data such as dates and times, nor does it include specific details on the offenses.
Some, including Bronx Councilman Fernando Cabrera and The Village Voice newspaper, have criticized the map for its lack of such features, as well as its lack of information on reckless driving and vehicular homicides, a major concern for the city’s growing community of bicycle advocates.. In a comment on an article covering the map, the founder of crime mapping startup SpotCrime also complained that the data was not available in an open format and did not include incident numbers.
