Pinellas launches interactive crime website

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - When Shea Beam became a mom, her ideas about crime changed.

“Once you have children, you feel like you can’t make their environment safe enough,” Beam said, while sitting inside of her house in Pinellas Park.

Beam and her husband have two daughters and a son, all under the age of five. To protect them, Beam devours as much information about crime and safety as possible.

“We aren’t the kind to just hope that it’s good out there,” Beam said. “We want to know as much as we can.”

Pinellas County thinks they can provide Beam with the information she wants.

They have launched a new website called ‘Crime Viewer,’ that would allow Beam and anyone in the county to learn about crime happening in their own neighborhood.

Here’s how it works:

• Input your address on the website
• Set the radius around your house that you would like to examine (half-mile, one mile, two mile and three mile)
• Decide which crimes to look for
• Choose the length of time you want to search (up to one year back)

The website will then provide you a list of all the reported crime in that area using your search choices. A map also shows you where in that area the crime was reported.

The crime data is updated daily. The county decided to create the website after being inundated by requests from crime data from the public.

“It helps you make an informed decision about things is the bottom line,” said chief deputy Robert Gualtieri from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. “In a very instantaneous way, they get a snapshot of what’s been occurring in that area.”

Down the road, Pinellas County hopes to have a system where you would receive an email when a crime occurs in your neighborhood.

The ‘Crime Viewer’ website is available at: http://www.pinellascounty.org/crimeviewer/