The Roanoke Times: Datasphere

Comments

# 1

[December 14, 2007 3:00 PM]

Valerie

Is there some kind of Car theft ring in Roanoke. Has the past reports had this many vehicle thefts before? You can guess the quadrants but they would be nice to have. I noticed a burglary missing in our neighborhood though it could have been in a prior 2 week report.

# 2

[December 14, 2007 5:15 PM]

Matt

Interesting question about auto theft. I only have one prior report on my hard drive, from late September and early October. There were 15 auto thefts on it.

Problem is, with no archive, you have no context. It's about one a day for that period, but is this a lot, comparitively? It's hard to discern. But for what they're worth, here are the ones from that period:

1300 Dudley St NW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/28/07 200 1300 Aspen St NW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 10/05/07 200 2900 Franklin Rd SE Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 10/05/07 1200 2800 Corbieshaw Rd SW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/26/07 1400 3200 Ellsworth St NE Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/25/07 1500 3200 Orange Ave NE Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/22/07 1600 100 Day Ave SW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/23/07 1700 3600 Troutland Ave NW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/23/07 1700 900 Morehead Ave SE Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/27/07 1700 4500 Palmer Ave NE Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/24/07 2000 2600 Westover Ave SW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/22/07 2100 2300 Tuckawana Cir NW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/17/07 2200 300 Jefferson St SE Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 10/06/07 2200 1300 Dudley St NW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 09/28/07 2300 4400 Palmer Ave NE Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 10/03/07 2300 400 Woods Ave SW Roanoke, VA Motor Vehicle Theft 10/05/07 2300

# 3

[December 15, 2007 10:21 AM]

Ed S.

I live in Fairfax Co. and they do a decent job of reporting. They even provide a decent online mapping tool that will search for reported crimes in a radius around an address. (see it at: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/gisapps/myneighborhood/default.aspx?http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/gisapps/myneighborhood/mynpolice.aspx#police)

The problem with any such mapping is that they can only show *reported* incidents. We recently had the district's community liaison attend a homeowner's meeting, and several residents complained about regular loitering and crime occurring at one of our recreation centers (which apparently had poor lighting and good foot-access to wooded alleys for escapes). The liaison officer challenged that despite all of the complaints, there were only a handful of reports on record. And of course, the police being resource constrained, they must focus their efforts where the apparent problems are.

The maps are an excellent tool, but only as good as the residents allow them to be. The result is that crime in some areas can appear lower if the incidents are not reported.

# 4

[December 15, 2007 4:51 PM]

matt

Excellent point, Ed. And the converse is also true of crime reports. An area with an active neighborhood watch can appear more crime-ridden simply because residents report crime more frequently.

This is especially true with counts of calls for service. All these reports indicate is how often people call the police.

Offenses tend to be a better measure, because at least they involve confirmed criminal acts, but even they are subject to the same issues you point out.

# 5

[December 19, 2007 2:29 PM]

beer

Let's not sugarcoat crime. Whether reported or not, the poorer areas have more than the richer areas. Period.