Living in Northern Virginia, lobbyist Greg Whisenant couldn't believe how difficult it was to get information about local crime. So last year he did something about it, launching CrimeReports.com, a Web site that works with local governments to post free crime maps online.
"I think there is an expectation on the part of the public to see this data," said Whisenant, a lobbyist turned Internet entrepreneur.
About the same time in California, Gino Sesto and a friend were swapping stories about experiences with police officers who gave them traffic tickets. An idea came to Sesto: Why not offer a site where people can rate individual police officers? RateMyCop.com was born.
The two Web sites are part of a fast-moving online trend that's helping to satisfy America's insatiable appetite for news and information about crime and policing. Such new tools provide immediate answers to questions about personal security: How safe is my block? My neighborhood? The downtown area where I work? Where my college-age son or daughter lives?
Increasingly sophisticated, yet relatively inexpensive to create, such Internet-based mapping applications are being used by dozens of municipalities and companies to disseminate crime information to the public. Web sites also are helping the public monitor police behavior, as a check against possible abuses of authority.
Their popularity is growing quickly. RateMyCop.com attracts about 200,000 unique visitors a day; in Washington alone, 20,000 people have signed up for CrimeReports.com's localized crime e-mail alerts, officials for the companies said.
Such programs can fill a gap for many small police departments that haven't had the resources to use electronic, interactive crime-mapping in their own enforcement strategies, said Julie Wartell, crime analyst administrator with the San Diego County District Attorney's Office.
"To really do [community policing] effectively, you need the community as a partner. How do you take them on as a partner if you don't give them information?" said Wartell, who helps run the San Diego County crime map that has been around since 1999.
San Diego officials have supported community-oriented policing for years, she said, and the desire to keep the public informed online through crime mapping arose from that approach. San Diego County's site had nearly 800 visitors a day in May, she said.
