NYPD Unveils New Interactive Crime Map

For the first time, the New York Police Department has released an interactive crime map displaying all crimes committed within the five boroughs.

The NYPD and the city's Information Technology and Telecommunications Department unveiled the new map on Sunday, enabling New Yorkers to compare crime statistics in different neighborhoods and boroughs.

With the crime map, a user can type in an address and then see the locations of all reported felonies nearby from January 2012 to October 2013.  In addition, you can view how felonies stack up by precinct. The map, however, does not reveal when a crime happened or other details about the incident.

The map was released as a part of a new city-wide law that requires all government data to be made available to the public online, reports the Huffington Post. The data is the same info that was available via CompStat reports on the NYPD's website, which are updated as PDFs on a weekly basis since 2003.

The NYPD warned that this representation made some places with low populations look disproportionately crime-ridden. "These areas, particularly in Manhattan have daytime populations that increase disproportionately during the day compared to the area's resident population, resulting in both high crime counts and high crime rates per 1000 population," said the department.

However, police Commissioner Ray Kelly lauded the map as a crime-fighting tool, saying "This administration has relied on data to drive its crime fighting, and this map helps enhance New Yorkers' and researchers' understanding of where felony and violent crime persists."