Sheriff's Office Offers Web-based Crime Mapping Resource To Public

 Narrative:  In an effort to help reduce crime and further strengthen local community oriented policing efforts, the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department recently went live at CrimeMapping.com. CrimeMapping.com is a nationwide public mapping service that allows residents to analyze interactive maps of recent crime activity. Visitors to the site can generate reports, search by location and filter for different time periods as well as crime types. Keeping the public well informed has been proven effective as a crime fighting strategy and the Sheriff’s Office is proactively sharing information within Winnebago County as well as the Village of Machesney Park, which we police by contract.  Crime Alerts are one of the most popular features at CrimeMapping.com. Residents can register online to receive free updates via e-mail whenever new crime activity occurs in their area. Users choose the distance as well as crimes they wish to stay informed about. A single user can register multiple times in order to learn about activity occurring near their residence, place of business or even their child’s school of attendance.  The information posted is always current as data is uploaded to the system every 24 hours. The incident records information used is thoroughly tested and represents some of the highest levels of integrity and accuracy available for any public crime mapping site. The residents of Winnebago County and Machesney Park have been empowered with valuable and timely information through the efforts of the Sheriff’s Office. CrimeMapping.com helps promote transparency and trust through expanding the channels of communication between the police and the public they serve. To view this data, you may visit the Sheriff’s Office home page (www.winnebagosheriff.com) and select the icon   along the left column, which will take you directly to the crime activity records for our office for the past week.  You can select different date ranges, crimes, and locations by navigating through the various features of this site.  You may also access the information, or information for any agency participating in this program, by going directly to www.CrimeMapping.com and selecting any participating agency from the home page map.