What is the CrimeMapper? The CrimeMapper is a tool for seeing where crime reports have occurred in the Sacramento area. You can search within a specific time frame and for specific types of crimes.
The site is currently in beta testing and is hosted on our external site, crimemap.scoopytube.com but can be reached through the url, www.sacbee.com/crimemapper. Please send feedback to pbasofin@sacbee.com.
Where does the data for the CrimeMapper come from? The crime reports come from local law enforcement agencies. For example, the Sacramento Police Department posts its database on its website. Reports handled by the Elk Grove Police Department came from the city.
Which cities are included? Sacramento, Sacramento County, Elk Grove, Folsom
Why can't I find a crime that happened yesterday? Currently, law agencies are not releasing data on a daily basis. The most frequent updates are from the Sacramento Police Department, which updates its public database files monthly.
Why are addresses marked inaccurately on the map? The Bee's crime database includes more than 100,000 different addresses. An automated process is used to geocode the bulk of the addresses; some locations may not be findable by the script, others may have been vague or mistyped in the original reports. The Bee is working on manually fixing addresses that have erroneous latitude and longitude coordinates. Please email Pete Basofin if you see any discrepancies.
Why are sexual assaults and domestic violence reports shown on this map? The Bee believes it is important for users to know if these crimes have occurred in their neighborhood. The exact addresses for most of these reports have already been omitted by the providing agency. For the reports that do have address information, the numbers have been rounded off to the block number to protect the privacy of the victims. Also, the precision of the latitude and longitude coordinates of these reports have been rounded; thus, the markers may appear to be offset a small distance from their actual location. This is to make it impossible to guess the addresses from looking at the marker locations.
Why are only a hundred reports shown at a time? Web browsers can slow down when too many markers are drawn on a map. If a search brings up more than 100 markers, CrimeMapper shows the 100 most recent incidents. Links are provided on the results menu to navigate through the entire list of reports. The mapping application works best on Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 or Safari.
What do the abbreviations mean?
For the Sacramento Police Department
I RPT: Stands for an "incident report," as opposed to a "crime report." The elements required to establish that a crime occurred are not present, but the police still want to document the incident.
From the Elk Grove Police Department
RPT: Report (could be crime or incident report)
REPORT - SPECIFY:
SUSP - CIRCUM: Suspicious circumstances
SUSP - VEHICLE: Suspicious vehicle
IP: In progress
MP: Missing person
JO: Just Occurred
BURG - VRPT: Burglary - Vehicle
PERSON - MPRISK: Missing person at risk
PERSON - MPRNWY: Missing person runaway
PERSON - 515000: 5150 W&I (Mental Health evaluation)
PERSON - WELCK: Welfare check
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