San Rafael, CA – Public safety always will be a top concern in any community, and in the online world there’s an insatiable quest for knowledge about neighborhood crime statistics. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office has worked with the Marin County Department of Information Services and Technology (IST) to make a vast database of crime stats available online.
Marin County Open Data, which
debuted in 2017, now includes facts and figures about all crimes reported to the Sheriff’s Office dating to January 1, 2013. Anyone may research the database and break down the stats by the type, date or approximate location of the violation. Web surfers can pinpoint everything from disorderly conduct calls to thefts to homicides.
“By sharing this information, we’re putting the same type of technology used by law enforcement to analyze and interpret crime activity into the hands of the public,” said Wesley Hill, Principal Systems Analyst with County IST. “It’s empowering to have access to that data and helps residents learn more about what’s going on in their neighborhoods.”
Through this technological step, the Sheriff’s Office is improving transparency in government with an important goal in mind.
“We’re working to reduce crime, improve public safety and enhance our partnerships in the community,” said Sgt. Fred Marziano of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. “Having this data available might help people make more informed decisions for the sake of their families and themselves.”
The roots of the online database date to the Marin County Board of Supervisors’ 5 Year Business Plan, approved in October 2015, which included a vision of being a more responsive government with innovation as a core value. One strategy is to increase online options for the community to conduct business with the County or learn more about the services it provides.
“The County hopes to encourage residents to become more familiar with how their government is performing and build tools that ultimately make Marin an even better place to live, work and play,” County Administrator Matthew Hymel said when the database went public. “Transparency is the key to increasing public trust and drives accountability. The better informed our residents are about what we do, the more responsive we can be to their needs and the more effective we can be.”
Marin County Open Data was created in conjunction with Socrata, a leading global provider of open data and government performance management solutions.
The crime statistics do not include calls for service by personnel from town and city police departments in Marin. However, many of the crimes to which Sheriff’s deputies respond are within town or city limits, and those are reflected in the Open Data statistics and map.