The Jeff Beckham Weblog

There’s a nice interactive feature on Statesman.com that lets you search the Austin Police Department’s records for any property crime reported in 2006. What’s more, there’s a slick Google Maps interface that allows you to zoom in on the location and get more details, including whether the report led to an arrest.

You can search the database by type of crime, a specific street address, or a zip code. Most people will look up crimes in their neighborhood, but this would also be a useful tool if you’re considering moving to a particular part of town.

The map was created to support reporter Tony Plohetski’s story on property crimes, which looked at more than 40,000 police reports and showed that “property crimes are rarely solved, and the success of solving a case largely depends on where the crime is reported.”

This is a great addition to the Statesman.com site and exactly the type of feature that local newspapers should employ. The only drawback is that these are 2006 numbers, and thus about eight months old.

The Statesman should to use this as a first step in building a site similar to chicagocrime.org, a browsable database of crimes reported in Chicago.