VT Census Case Studies : James City County: Crime Data

Brief Overall Description of the Dataset:

James City County Police’s mission is to "perform our duties and fulfill our responsibilities of enforcing the law, preserving the peace, and providing police services so that it improves the quality of life for all citizens within our jurisdiction.

The area uses RAIDS online program to map data Exact address hidden. Data is available to York County too http://raidsonline.com/overview/help.html

Incident data can also be found here (no historical data available here): http://www.jamescitycountyva.gov/pdf/police/crime/Incidents.pdf

Screening

  • Is the data collected opinion-based?
  • Is the data collection recurring (must be collected at least annually)?
  • Is there data available for 2013?
  • Is the data collected at the property or housing unit level?
  • Can we access the data by August 15th?

Purpose

  • What is the purpose of the organization collecting the data?

James City County PD’s purpose is to reduce the incidence of crime and improve the quality of life in the county.

  • Why is it collected and how does the organization use it?

The data is collected for internal administrative purpose, to report to national organizations, like the FBI, to help make informed decisions about preventing crime.

  • Who else uses the data?

Citizens, researchers, policymakers

  • Who do they sell the data to?

Commercial/non profit entities who repurpose the data to create their own databases or products.

 

Method

  • What is the data collection method? 

Operator entry

  • What is the type of data collected? 

Administrative Data

  • If designed, who created the questions?

  • What is the raw source of the collected data (prior to any aggregation)? 

Police reports and CAD data


Description

  • What is the general topic of the data (1-2 words)?

Crime

  • What are the earliest and latest dates for which data is available?

Unknown. Initial search of RAIDS shows limited coverage for data going back to 2009

  • Is data collected and available periodically?

Yes

  • How soon after a reference period ends can a data source be prepared and provided? 

Unknown (Last upload to RAIDS in available one dashboard)


Selectivity

  • What is the universe (e.g., population) that the data represents?

Incidents involving the police in James City County


Accessibility

  • How is the data accessed? 

Incident tracking: pdf

RAIDS: table that can be copied and pasted

  • Is it open data?

Yes

  • Any legal, regulatory, or administrative restrictions on accessing the data source?

None stated

  • Cost? - One time or annual or project based payment?

Free

Does this dataset appear to meet our needs for the Census study? Maybe

Explanation: Questionable if we could get data through the online system in time. No exact location Would have to work with the police department themselves.