CHICAGO (AP) — Long a city with a reputation for
withholding information, Chicago now wants to make public every crime over the
past 10 years — a highly unusual move among the nation's major police
departments.
Starting Wednesday, millions of crime statistics
dating to 2001 will be posted online in a searchable database. It will be
updated daily, providing fodder for residents to evaluate their own
neighborhoods, academics to study crime and techie types to create websites or
apps.
The release is the latest attempt by the administration
of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who took office in May, to make city dealings more open
and counter Chicago's reputation for entrenched systemic corruption and
backroom deals. Chicago officials recently posted online the salaries of city
employees, city contracts and lobbying data, with more information expected in
coming months.
"It's a whole new era of openness and
transparency," said Brett Goldstein, the city's chief data officer and
former police officer. "You determine your own analysis."
While some city critics are skeptical, Chicago's
crime data release goes beyond what other major police departments do, crime
experts say. Besides listing every crime over the past decade — some 4.6
million incidents — the database also lists each address, if there was an
arrest, the police beat, city ward and case number. That includes everything
from sidewalk arrests for marijuana possession to homicides.
An average person can already get details on a
crime that happened the day before, but now they'll be able to look back over
the past decade on their neighborhood, ward or entire city. It also increases
the potential for more long-term studies by experts and, some hope, take steps
toward crime prevention.
"It's big," said David Kennedy, director
of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal
Justice in New York. "If not unprecedented, it's very unusual."
While no one tracks the some 15,000 police
departments nationwide, a check of other major police departments that post
crime statistics online shows nothing as comprehensive as Chicago.
Many, including Los Angeles, use a third-party
company that maps data over a limited time period, generally a month or two.
Los Angeles also has some historical data available, but it's through static
reports or compilations of incidents. That information isn't searchable and a
recent check showed links to several years were broken. Houston has a 30-day
log. New York publishes weekly data, and has some historical data online,
though the department has faced criticism for allegations of manipulating data
and the police commissioner recently formed a unit to look into the claims.
The Seattle Police Department appears to come
closest to what Chicago is attempting. It offers logs of 911 calls and has a
searchable database, but the time and incidents aren't complete.
Prior to Wednesday, Chicago offered a 90-day
glimpse of crime in a mapping tool. The city added a yearlong database earlier
in the summer.
Chicago's data won't include some cases that are
under federal investigation. Also, the database won't specify if the shooting
was police officer-involved, for instance, though all homicides will be in the
database, city officials said.
Some advocacy groups worry the information doesn't
go far enough because it doesn't include race or detailed police reports.
"It would be one small step in the right
direction," said Tracy Siska, executive director of the Chicago Justice
Project, which helps increase public access to information. He called the
police department's reputation "horrible" when it comes to doling out
information, citing an incident last year when the group waited 78 days to
release details on the sexual assaults, he said.
Also he said such massive information dumps aren't
always user friendly to the average person. City officials recognized that
fact, but Goldstein said there are more benefits to making raw data available
to everyone.
He said those who stand to benefit the most are
academics and journalists because the data will be in one place, cutting down
on Freedom of Information Act requests and other time-consuming and costly
requests for records.
Yale University professor Tracey Meares, who has
long studied Chicago crime, said it sends a message to academics that the
Chicago Police Department is "an agency that's willing to share."
"That kind of transparency is a good
idea," she said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
