Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday weekend.  The New Year is just around the corner, and I have an announcement to start us off in the right direction.

I am excited to share with you a new crime-fighting tool that the SLCPD has joined.  Called CrimeReports, this web-based statistical analysis allows us to track crime trends using different applications.  While I am just learning how to use the program, I am very impressed at how customizable it appears on our end.

The best part is this-you can access this database too!  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be walking you through how you can look up crime stats in your own neighborhood, other places, even other parts of the world!  It’s so easy, you’ll be amazed!

So let’s start here.  The website is www.crimereports.com.  Go ahead, check it out!   Now once you get there, be patient, there is a lot of information and it sometimes takes a minute to fully load.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the map is probably not of SLC.  You’ll need to enter an address or just ‘salt lake city, UT’ to get there.  My first warning is that you will not be able to search a specfic address; while you can enter one, you will only receive general information in a block area.  In other words, if you want to check up on your neighbors?  Won’t work here, sorry.

Once you get your map in the right part of the state, now you’ll want to customize your view.  At the top right of the map, you’ll see some tabs labeled ‘date range’, ‘incident layers’, and ‘map layers’.  I suspect the most important one for citizens just starting this program will be ‘incident layers’.

Once you have entered the incident layers, you’ll see a new menu.  Just look at how many different types of crimes and information you can select!  Isn’t that wonderful?  You can select as many or as few as you’d like, and once you do, make sure you click on the ‘apply and close’ button at the bottom.  Now you’ll see those icons appear on the map.

I’ll leave you there for now.  Get on, get familiar, and get informed!

Questions?  Feel free to email, call, or tweet @SlcpdCIUdist2.