Henry Smith MP has welcomed a new online tool which for the first time means local people can track what happened after a crime was committed in their neighbourhood.
In the next stage of development of the groundbreaking website www.Police.uk, local residents will not only be able to access street level crime data but also see what action the local police have taken as a result and whether offenders went to court.
Commenting, Henry said:
“We are all used to reading the report in the papers when a crime is committed in the town. But local residents don’t just want to know that a crime has been committed; we want to know what is being done about it. Was someone arrested for the crime? Did it go to court? This new tool puts that information at our fingertips.
“The www.Police.uk site is helping to revolutionise the way the police and the wider criminal justice system are held to account by making this information available at the touch of a button. It will help drive up performance and allow the public to make informed choices in the upcoming elections for Police and Crime Commissioners.”
The additions to the site come after the public showed a huge appetite for more information on every aspect of crime in their area, with more than 47 million visits on www.Police.uk since it launched in January 2011.
www.Police.uk has already undergone a series of innovative updates, providing the public with more criminal justice information than ever before. This includes mapping crimes at points of interest including supermarkets and nightclubs, introducing new crime categories such as shoplifting, and increasing accuracy by placing crimes to within eight postcodes instead of 12.