Andrew Dasher is the manager of the Lincoln Police Department's Crime Analysis Unit. Drew has a new blog, locationbasedpolicing.com. He is interested in engaging more of his colleagues in a dialog about the emerging technology of location-based services in policing, and the implications of this technology for police strategies.
I was really intrigued with his most recent post about a free geocoding and map hosting service, batchgeo. It amazes me what you can do these days with free products and services. Drew has published a sample map of a fictional series of auto thefts, to demonstrate the output from batchgeo. Click on one of the fake cases, and check out the cool label that incorporates an image. I can write the string of html code necessary to create the labels in Drew's sample map, but this product automates that to a very easy pick-and-click step. There simply is no reason any police or fire agency with the inclination couldn't be creating some useful GIS products.
Good luck with the blog, Drew. This is certainly a topic that is gathering a lot of momentum in policing, and if you can stimulate some more discussion among crime analysts and policing practitioners, you will be performing a nice service to the professional field.
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2 comments:
At first look the map is a great advance in tech. I think the use of the features will come in handy for keeping track of pot holes and such. That is about the best use a "plain ole joe" can get from it. Thank you for the link to the site Dash.
Excellent Service. I've been looking for a free service to do our Geo-coding for a long time. This will be put to good use.
Thanks
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