The Best Free Mapping Tools for Crime Research

With the advent of the Internet and increasing rates of high performance personal computers and broadband penetration, more and more specific and useful information has surfaced, as well as potential applications. Combined with increasing levels of transparency, exact criminal mapping is now available to the general public and many maps are headed towards becoming very accurate and detail-oriented.

Crime maps can have a variety of uses. For example, anyone planning a neighborhood watch, looking for new housing or business location, studying criminal justice or marketing a product can find a lot of use for them. The first few websites show ready-made crime maps, free for use. These range from quick-reference to those with incredibly varied and detailed data. The last resource provided here is a tool that lets you create your own maps for whatever purpose you require.

Using a variety of sources, I have found the most promising crime mapping websites, featured below. There's a lot of ineffective sites out there, and worst of all, many of them cost money. Unless you have cash to experiment with, try checking out the free resources below. As a reference point, I searched my own New York City on each and used the information thereof for review. You may get different results in your local area.

http://www.spotcrime.com
This website has been very popular recently, and there are many that recommend it. For any geographic area or city, it will display pop-up icons on a Google Map. The icons correspond to the type of crime, including assault, shootings, robbery, arson, arrests and more. In addition, it provides a list providing slightly more detail on the incident. Lastly, you can "go back in time" and see crimes of, say, the second week of May of last year. If you only have time to go over a single map, make it this one, though keep in mind that there is much more information out there.

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/
Neighborhood Scout is a very useful website that gives you almost block-by-block crime statistics, as well as displaying city-wide data as well. By indexing small areas from safest to most dangerous, a color-coded set of patches shows up over your map. This way, you can pinpoint the areas in the most criminal danger, and over time adjust accordingly. Most of the services are free, but this site will provide more detailed information for a subscription fee as well.

http://www.everyblock.com/
In addition to real estate listings and business reviews, Every Block will also display detailed crime reports, precinct-specific mapping and even graffiti reports. Detail in crime activity comes from the site's ability to pull news reports on the area in question, and this ability comes in handy in keeping up to date. You can even subscribe to email alerts! Altogether, it doesn't have the quantity of reports that other sites do, it is definitely user-friendly and provides a wide variety of useful data for your investigation.

http://www.city-data.com/
City Data represents the most comprehensive statistical information for its subject. For the seasoned researcher, journalist or librarian, this site is a goldmine of data, but can be somewhat overwhelming to the casual browser. For those wanting information on possible correlations with crime, you can find it here, in the form of income demographics, unemployment, education and marriage rates, most common professions, race percentages, and of course, crime by year. All in all, a solid site to do in-depth research on a targeted area.

http://www.crimereports.com/
This site is devoted solely to displaying crime data. The upside to this website in that it integrates the sex offender database into the mapping and displays these on the map. This is something that is really and truly unique about this resource, and the combination of crime data and sex offender location can be very valuable to an investigation or safety map. The downside is that other crime information is very patchy, and many cities, including some of the largest, are not yet covered. For now, this site has more potential than promise.

http://www.statemaster.com/
State Master provides information for a lot state-specific information, including crime rates. This can be helpful in comparing crime rates between cities. It's ultimately very similar in performance to City Data, but with slightly different information niches. Also like City-Data, it has a very large amount of information on a wide variety of topics.

http://www.nationmaster.com/
The sister site of State Master, Nation Master can map the regional information for many countries, making it ideal for international reference. Of the free sites, this is really the best one that maps crime in countries outside of the United States. Overall, using these 2 sites in tandem can be very helpful in modeling changing demographics for cities and countries alike.

http://www.zeemaps.com/
Zee Maps is totally different from the above sites, in that you can create your own map and view user-generated maps. Many topics are covered, and crime is a popular choice. In a very underused service, it provides the ability to upload and convert Excel spreadsheets into maps, which can then be displayed on a website or printed. For someone looking to create their own map, either from their own first-hand accounts or creating an amalgam map of several sources online, this is the perfect tool.