Check Kansas City Crime Stats With New Web Site

If you're worried about crime in your neighborhood, there's a new way to find out what's going on.

It's a Web site that Kansas City police are calling a great new tool for residents and officers.

CrimeReports.com provides neighborhood crime data in near real time. The service allows anyone to receive automatic daily, weekly or monthly e-mail alerts when crime happens near any location users choose.

The service, which is free, uses Google Maps to see every crime that police dispatch called out within 24 hours. Crimes are shown by a pin mark.

"The openness -- the information that it provides to just the general citizen out there. It opens doors, let's people see what's going on," Officer Steve Patterson told KMBC's Jere Gish.

Before CrimeReports.com, if someone requested crime statistics, it was a long process.

"I would send a request to the computer unit, it was normally seven to 10 business days, which wasn't always fortunate for some people because they were looking for houses and they wanted to know the crime in their neighborhood," said Karen Shaw, a crime analyst with Kansas City police.

Officers said it won't just help residents -- it will also help police.

"It will be invaluable to officers in the field," Sgt. Randy Sims said. "It'll give them information that they can see where there are some crime trends and be able to go out and address those problems immediately."

Kansas City resident Ben Saverino has already checked the site. He said he knows he lives in an area with a lot of crime, and now he can keep track of exactly what's happening there.

"It looks like a lot of robbery and theft, and not very far from me, either. It's really pretty concentrated right about a block over from me," Saverino said. "This is a very useful tool, especially if you have kids."

Only a handful of cities in Missouri are using CrimeReports.com. In addition to Kansas City, it's also available in Liberty.

Kansas City pays $199 a month for the program, but there is no charge for the public.

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