BY LINDA BENTLEY | AUGUST 31, 2011
RAIDSOnline.com for tracking crime in your community
PHOENIX – Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office CAD Coordinator, Crime/GIS Analyst Scott Jefferys developed a program RAIDSOnline.com that allows law enforcement agencies to map and track criminal activity in a sortable database.
Jefferys extends the credit to Bair Software for offering the website service free of charge to law enforcement agencies and the public.
The program not only maps the location of each crime, it also allows data to be sorted by location, date range and type of crime.
RaidsOnline.com , a new website, free to law enforcement agencies and the public, allows anyone to monitor crime in their community or anywhere in the country where law enforcement agencies have chosen to utilize the program for tracking crime in a sortable database. The shaded states currently have municipalities participating.
And, with neighboring law enforcement agencies inputting data, it can assist in determining if related crimes are being committed across jurisdictional boundaries.
The program allows for entering a specific address or municipality, although panning across the map allows for viewing areas outside the municipal boundary chosen.
So, while Cave Creek may have been selected, the program also allows panning across the map to, let’s say, the Black Canyon Freeway near Anthem where a black dot on the map indicates a homicide occurred.
Clicking any dot on the map, which are color-coded by type of crime, will open a box that provides a brief detail of the type of crime, date, time, location and the reporting agency.
Sort features include crime types, with a “select all” feature; date ranges and analytic layers.
A data grid is also available that lists the crimes in a spreadsheet-type platform within the search parameters selected.
District IV Commander Lt. Rich Burden said as MCSO moves along with this new tracking system, “It will only get better.”
The program also allows anyone to sign up to receive crime alerts via e-mail on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
The following municipalities in Arizona are currently participating in the program: Aguila, Anthem, Avondale, Carefree, Cave Creek, Coconino County, El Mirage, Fountain Hills, Gila Bend, Guadalupe, Litchfield Park, Queen Creek, Maricopa County, New River, Rio Verde, Scottsdale, Sun City, Sun City West, Sun Lakes, Tempe, Wittmann, and Youngtown.
If your city is not listed, there’s a button at the top of the screen: “Ask your city to join” to place an anonymous request to RAIDSOnline, which will then compile the requests and submit the total number of requests directly to the law enforcement agency.
