A new website which will enable Londoners to get crime figures for their neighbourhood was launched by the Conservaative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Stephenson.
The new ‘crime mapping’ website means for the first time Londoners will be able to get information about crime levels in their neighbourhoods and access local crime prevention and safety advice.
The website provides a set of interactive maps, showing numbers and rates of crime, and links to other sites including Safer Neighbourhoods Team web pages. The site also compares the crime levels in local neighbourhoods to the London average.
The new crime mapping site went live on the Metropolitan police’s website on September 3, after a brief trial and testing period in August where feedback from the public informed the consultation process. Further crime categories will be added in a phased approach.
Boris Johnson said: “Crime mapping was one of my major manifesto commitments and an important part of our strategy to tackle the number one issue for Londoners, crime and safety. This new online service means that Londoners will, at long last, be able to get information about crime levels in their neighbourhood at the click of a button.
“Crime mapping puts information into the hands of every London citizen about the levels of crimes as well as contact details of their local police officers. This is a major step forward in enabling Londoners to really be able to assess the work of their local police in tackling the crimes that affect their neighbourhood.”
Sir Paul Stephenson said: “There has been a growing and understandable appetite for people to know more about what crime is happening in their local areas. We’ve deliberately made these new crime maps as easily accessible and user friendly as possible with the aim of increasing communication and trust between the public and the police.
"We’ve worked hard to get this right in a fairly tight timeframe and we are pleased that the Information Commissioner has in fact commended the design and delivery of the maps. Despite the timescale, effective public consultation is really important to the Met and this has been ongoing since August. Indeed, we have found that in some cases Londoners’ perception of crime is higher than the reality and the crime maps may help to reassure communities about the general safety of their local area."
The new crime mapping website can be found on: http://www.met.police.uk
Viewers will be able to ‘zoom in’ and ‘zoom out’ to examine crime levels within their chosen areas pan London, and at Borough, Ward and Sub-Ward levels. Crime mapping areas are based on pre-defined (‘sub ward’) areas consisting of an average of 633 households. There are 4,765 ‘sub wards in London. Crime rates are displayed both in colour coded (thematic) and numerical terms.
The new crime mapping website shows areas where the crime rate is considerably higher than the average for London, above the average for London, straddling the average for London, below the average for London and considerably lower than the average for London.
