Baltimore Sun homicide map gets makeover
The Baltimore Sun city homicide map got a makeover today, with Sun developer Stephen Mekosh adding Google charts below the map to help keep some of the key figures in perspective. A bar graph now shows the monthly total and contrasts it with the prior year, while also breaking out manner of death. There's an arrow on the right hand side that takes you to prior year data. The new bells and whistles, which were Stephen's conception, really put in perspective how much homicides are down so far this year. But it prior year data also shows how some of these figures can fluctuate wildly.
What other features or crime databases would you like to see us add? Keep it reasonable - everything we create has to be maintained, and I'd still like to, you know, write some articles every now and then.
(Disclaimer: some of our monthly totals pre-2009 may be off slightly from the official count. The BPD lists homicides on the day that they received word from the medical examiner that the victim's death was the result of an unjustified homicide. Prior to mid-2008, we listed them on the day of death. At some point I'm going to try to sync them up.)
Comments
This might be put in the "unreasonable" category, but why not put non-fatal shootings and stabbings on this map or another. To save time, maybe you wouldn't put the names, ages, etc. on the non-homicides.
Posted by: Richard | March 23, 2010 5:23 PM
Thanks for updating the map, But as Richard points out, a map with other crimes would be way more useful.
The city has one that lets you see two weeks at a time in a neighborhood. But, it's really hard to make comparisons over such a short period of time.
Anyhow, keep up the good work. This is a real community service.
I may be speaking out of turn, but I think we've had difficulty getting BPD to provide data the way Baltimore County and Anne Arundel provide it for those maps.
Truth be told, if we put anything more than homicides and shootings on the map and for a longer time period than the two weeks the BPD posts them on their site, in some neighborhoods there'd literally be map pins piled on top of each other - completely indiscernible. This is one of my complaints about SpotCrime, which is a good tool, but some of those things just pile up and you can't tell what all is there. Still, I acknowledge that there's far more crime that people would like to see on a map beyond homicides. We'll tinker with options. One of my ideas is some sort of a database that tracks murder prosecutions, but that's too half-baked at this point to list as a bona fide project of ours. -Justin
Posted by: V | March 23, 2010 5:52 PM
I think The Sun should post nonfatal shootings in addition to homicides. Rather than just compare vs. 12 months prior, show changes over 2 or 3 years. There was a big drop in homicides in 2008 and law enforcement officials were praised. When 2009 ended with about the same number as 2008, it was viewed as a disappointment despite the fact that 2009 numbers looked really good compared with 2007 or 2006.
Posted by: Daniel Webster | March 24, 2010 10:20 PM
It might be interesting to see many previous years in lines on the chart (as 2009 is listed). Perhaps at least show the last 2 or three years as three different colored lines?
Posted by: PD | March 25, 2010 9:17 AM
SICC PEOPLE CUZZ
Posted by: JHON | March 26, 2010 8:23 AM