San Francisco Murder Rate Under-Reported at CrimeSpotting.org
I just sent this email to info at crimespotting dot org.
I’ve noticed that very few murders are reported on http://sanfrancisco.crimespotting.org. From May 2010 to today I only see 3 murders, all in November. The San Francisco Police reported 50 murders in 2010 (http://informant.kalwnews.org/2011/01/san-francisco-sees-murder-spike-despite-crime-drop-in-2010/). http://oakland.crimespotting.org doesn’t seem to have the problem of underreporting murders.
Do you know why this is? It would be good if something could be done about it. I’d appreciate a response.
Thanks
For a while I thought that San Francisco’s murder rate was MUCH lower than Oakland’s, like 10 to 1. It appears that the Oakland murder rate is twice San Francisco’s (.21 murders per thousand vs .11 murders per thousand)
I’ll keep you, fair reader informed as to the results of my query.
Hi Lee, I’m one of the designers (and something of a de facto maintainer) of San Francisco Crimespotting. SFPD only just started publishing homicides in the feed we consume at the end of January. Specifically, the files that we read contain 90 days rolling history, so via automated means we were only able to import homicides from November onward. I haven’t yet had a chance to backfill homicide incidents for the previous years.
I did pull down the 2010 data file and isolate the homicide incidents onto this map, though, and came up with 57 reports. We have some open questions to SFPD regarding the “official” homicide count and how it matches up with this one, though. We’re talking with a reporter at the Bay Citizen who’s interested in writing about this subject, and I can put you in touch with her if you’d like to find out more.
Shawn, thank you very much for getting back to me about this personally. I understand it’s a work in progress. I don’t really need to speak with the reporter but if it makes for a better article, what the hey. They can contact me at Lee at Lee dat org.