Crime Map
**The Crime Map is under construction until June 2023. Please check back!**
The Pismo Beach Police Department developed a crime map to keep residents informed of crime trends within the city. The crime map is broken up into the 12 My Cop zones and places small icons on the map indicating the location of incidents throughout the city. The program allows the user to view crime for the past 7 days, 28 days, year or request a customized search. The user can also specifically search by crime type, day or night shift, or day of the week. If the user would like additional information, they can click on the incident icon of interest and a small box will appear with details. Details include type of incident, date and time of incident, and location (by cross street or 100 block).
The data shown may not always be finalized due to internal processing time delays. The records are also put through an exclusive data scrubbing process that works to locate each crime incident geographically, to a hundred block.
An increasing number of police departments around the world have adopted software that uses statistical data to guide their decision-making: predictive policing. The Pismo Beach Police Department employs a full-time crime analyst that is dedicated to this process. This approach means that the Pismo Beach Police analyzes statistical historic data to predict in what geographic areas there is an increased chance of criminal activity. This type of information can be used to efficiently deploy our resources to prevent criminal behavior. Predictive policing does not replace conventional policing methods (e.g. problem-oriented policing, intelligence-led policing or hotspot policing) but enhances these traditional practices by applying advanced statistical models and algorithms.
The use of statistical models can be of immense value for reducing crime and ensuring the safety in cities. Indeed, some cases in the United States indicate that when predictive policing software is used, the crime rate decreases. The United States collectively maintains a massive amount of criminal justice data, which is collected and centralized for law enforcement agencies. This process improves policing and police-community relations. To review crime data on a wider scale, visit these resources:
FBI Criminal Justice Information Services