BENTONVILLE — Computerized maps showing reported crime in Benton County are now available online.
At A Glance
Training Sessions
Training for members of the public interested in the new website features will be held at 6 p.m. tonight in Quorum Court room of the Benton County Administration Building, 215 E. Central Ave. Training sessions have also been scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. Dec. 3 and from 9 to 11 a.m. Dec. 5.
Source: Staff Report
The information added Wednesday to the Benton County Sheriff’s Office website allows residents to search for incidents that happened in the last two years within the jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Office. The software mimics maps used within the department. Small flags mark incidents in 15 main categories such as burglary, larceny or car accidents on county roads.
The website addition means the general public can look up what type of incidents happen in their area, said Capt. Hunter Petray.
“It’s all public information, but this just makes it readily available,” he said.
The county began using mapping software to follow sex offenders in 2004, said Elizabeth A. Bowen, county administrator of general services. Mapping software for the Sheriff’s Office followed.
The county was awarded a $15,861 from a Justice Assistance Grant in October 2011 to make some data publicly available and give the Sheriff’s Office more features. Publicly available data is generalized to within a city block of an incident.
Geographic information system software makes analyzing data easier because it collects the information in one spot and maps or graphs it into pieces that make sense, said Jonathan Bailey, the GIS specialist who built part of the program.
“We take normal data and give it a spatial reference,” he said.
A new feature for the site is its hotspot analysis.
A search through the online database shows alcohol-related incidents in Benton County happen on Saturday and Sunday night, but other trends might be surprising to some. Burglary, for instance, is more likely to be reported on Tuesday morning.
“The deputies that go out and take the calls — they know the problem areas we deal with,” Petray said.
Trends like time and place will help administrators schedule patrols, Petray said.
Web Watch
New Section
Visit www.bentoncountyshe… and click on the maps and stats tab to view the new section of the site.
In addition to publicly available data, the Sheriff’s Office will have better inmate data, Bowen said. Deputies will be able to access a map with outstanding warrants from laptops in their vehicles, Petray said. A searchable gang member database will index information surveyed from inmates since 2007. When deputies load an incident record through the in-house software they will have access to more incident information than the public, Bowen said.
The website will not index areas outside Benton County’s jurisdiction except for a shared database on high-level sex offenders. Seven days after a report clears the Sheriff’s Office that incident will join the other listings online for the public to view.
Through the new website features, people can check areas before they move, Petray said. Informed community members are key to good law enforcement.
“We only have so much manpower. We can’t be everywhere,” he said.