Crime Mapping - Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How are the pushpin locations determined?
A. One pushpin is assigned to an arbitrary point on each street in the City, with the exception of long streets and arterial roads which may have multiple pushpin locations. Incidents are attached to the nearest pushpin on the street where the police attended. Public facilities such as civic buildings, parks, recreation facilities, etc. may have their own pushpins.
Q. What do the numbers in the pushpins mean?
A. They indicate the number of incidents that occurred on that street. Numbers go from 1 to 25, but the number on the pushpin does not change if more than 25 incidents are listed.
Q. What does "theft under" mean, and what is theft from MV?
A. Theft crimes are categorized as "under $5,000" or "over $5,000" because the law applies harsher penalties to higher value thefts. These categories are abbreviated as "theft under" and "theft over". Theft from MV refers to theft from a motor vehicle, and is one of the most common crimes that occur. Since most thefts from vehicles are crimes of opportunity, residents can reduce the number of occurrences by removing valuables from their vehicles.
Q. Why are so many crimes shown at the RCMP Detachment?
A. The pushpins show the street or public facility where the RCMP attended. When a complaint is made in person at the RCMP Detachment, it is assigned to that building.
Q. Why isn't there a category for vandalism or graffiti?
A. Vandalism and graffiti are categorized as "Mischief".
Q. How much history is in the system?
A. Incidents reported to the police since January 1, 2005 can be displayed on the map.
Q. Why are there multiple map providers?
A. Each map provider (Bing, Google, Yahoo) update their maps every few years. You may find that one of the providers shows new streets before the others do.
Q. Do the date and time show when the crimes occurred?
A. No, the date and time indicate when the incident was reported to police. Usually the police are notified after the crime has been discovered, which could be minutes, hours or even days later.
Q. What data is shown when the map is first displayed?
A. The web page initially displays the incidents for the most recent week of data in the system. You can check and uncheck the crime types you want, and change the date range to select more or less information for the map. Press the Display Crimes button after changing your selections.
Q. How often are new incidents added to the map?
A. Data from the previous week is added on the first working day of each week.
Q. Why did a crime that was displayed last month change or disappear?
A. Data is added each week, and then refreshed after the end of each month. In situations where multiple violations occur on the same incident, only the most serious one is shown on the map. Sometimes an on-going investigation will result in changes to the most serious violation or crime category, and the map will be updated accordingly. Occasionally, a reported crime will later prove to be unfounded, and be removed from the map.
Q. I know police attended a certain location, but I don't see a pushpin on the map.
A. Calls to police sometimes turn out to be unfounded, and those types of calls for service are not plotted on the map. Occasionally an address may be misspelled or incomplete in the police database, which could also result in it not appearing on the map.
Q. Why isn't there any crime shown for the shopping centre that is in my neighbourhood?
A. Occurrences in major shopping areas and arterial roads are excluded from neighbourhood statistics. They are shown only when "Arterial Roads" or the entire city is displayed (select "All" Neighbourhoods).
Q. Why is the map slow to display?
A. Response time increases when there is a lot of data to process. If you select multiple crime categories over a long time period, the system could be trying to plot thousands of occurrences on the map, which will take a long time.
Q. What can I use the map for?
A. It is possible to illustrate crime trends by selecting a single crime category and then creating maps for different time periods. For example, if you select your neighbourhood and just the "Theft from Vehicle" crime category, you may not see any pushpins for the current week. However, when you change the Start Date to a year ago, many pushpins will be plotted, and if you change the start date to Jan 1, 2005 almost all streets will have a pushpin. This shows that this type of crime eventually strikes everywhere, and there is no such thing as a "safe street".
Q. When the mouse moves over a pushpin with 25 in it, sometimes the list of occurrences extends beyond the map frame (Bing maps), or the map jumps and I cannot see the list at all (Google maps).
A. A pushpin with 25 in it indicates there are 25 or more occurrences plotted in that area. If the list is too long to display within the map frame, the problems described can occur. Click the Make Report button to create a printed list of all the occurrences on the map.
Q. How can I download data to perform my own analysis?
A. Click the Make Report button to create a printed list of all the occurrences on the map. When the report appears in the popup window (or tab), do the following:
- Click inside the report, then press <Ctrl>+A to select all the data
- Press <Ctrl>+C to copy the data to your clipboard
- In a program such as Microsoft Excel, open a new spreadsheet, then press <Ctrl>+V to paste the data into the spreadsheet
- Use the sorting and charting features in your spreadsheet program to analyze the data in any way you want.
Q. Who can I contact about the crime mapping web page?
A. Messages and questions about the crime mapping page only should be sent to dfetterly@st-albert.net.