VERO BEACH – Vero Beach residents now have the ability to find out what the Vero Beach Police Department is doing on their street and how safe their neighborhood is, now that the department has signed on with CrimeReports.com.
The Web site has created the National Crime Map, which tracks police activity online.
“Providing reliable, timely information to our citizens is one of our top priorities,” said Vero Beach Police Chief Don Dappen. “And partnering with CrimeReports gives us the ability to keep the public informed on a regular basis as to what is going on in the community.”
The public can access the crime map 24 hours a day through the Web site or through the CrimeReports iPhone app, available for free download in the Apple iTunes store.
The new service lets local citizens sign up for free customizable e-mail alerts, so they can stay on top of crime in their neighborhood.
“Information is power,” Chief Dappen added. “And we hope that giving the community this information will help them prevent crime in their neighborhoods.”
With this program, the department is also launching Command Central, which is an advanced analytics software solution that allows officers to access crime data through a Web-based interface of interactive graphs, maps, charts, reports and visualizations.
The goal of the new software is to provide in-depth information at the fingertips of everyone in the department to better target policing efforts, improve efficiency and lower crime rates, according to the police department.
With the new tool, officers can access near real-time data from the computers in their patrol vehicles. This allows crime analysts to offload much of the report-generating they do on a daily and weekly basis and focus on more targeted analysis of crime trends.
“We’re very excited about implementing this powerful tool,” said Chief Dappen. “The truly revolutionary thing about Command Central is that, with its low cost, it gives small and medium-size agencies the same advanced analytics tools that were previously only available to larger, more well-funded departments. We fully expect this will have a measurable impact on our ability to track and respond to crime trends in a more pro-active way.”
The CrimeReports service will be paid for by the Vero Beach Police Foundation.
The Foundation is a non-profit organization operated by a Board of Directors consisting of concerned citizens who support law enforcement and in particular the Vero Beach Police Department.
The Foundation conducts fundraisers and accepts donations that are used to help the Police Department obtain specialized items and equipment that may not be accessible through taxpayer funds.
Citizens can access their local crime map and sign up for daily, weekly, or monthly email crime alerts at www.CrimeReports.com or at the Vero Beach Police Departments Web site at www.vbpd.org.