Every police force in England and Wales will publish interactive
crime maps online by the end of the year, Home Secretary Jacqui
Smith has announced.
"By rolling out up-to-date, interactive crime maps, we can
better inform people about crime problems in their area and enable
them to have much more of a say in what their local police focus
on," she said.
The project is part of the government's commitment to deliver
more crime information to the public as outlined in the
Policing
Green Paper, published earlier this month.
West-Midlands
police will be among the first to introduce the maps when an
updated version of its crime-mapping website is launched in
September.
Crime mapping has also been pioneered by
West Yorkshire
police, which began making information available to the public
in this way two years ago.
Sir Norman Bettison, Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)
lead on policing futures, said, "Given the positive response from
the public, ACPO supports the roll-out of this facility
nationally."
He said the project fulfilled a key responsibility to give
information to communities so they can see the real level of crime
and help the police to address it.