Someone recently asked to see Peoria’s homicides plotted on a map. I had mentioned that would take some time; well, as it turns out, the police already have such a map, and it was included in the agenda for tonight’s council meeting. It shows not only homicides, but also “aggravated discharge of a firearm” violations. I don’t think this will surprise anyone:
On tonight’s agenda is a proposal to help stem the violence — the Cease Fire program, which was suggested by fourth-district councilman Bill Spears. Kudos to Mr. Spears for looking for new ideas on how to solve our crime problem.
Is there somewhere this map can be downloaded and printed out?
Diane — Yes, you can click here for the map and print it from your browser.
CJ, the city also has a similar map identifying the locations of rental properties. The correlation is startling.
In my quest to find the perfect house in Peoria I used a website called platial.com to map 5,000 rental properties in Peoria a few months back. Unfortunately Platial didn’t quite work how I needed it to. The problem was it mapped all 5,000 locations but it would only show 20 (I think) at one time. I was hoping to create something like this crime map for the rental properties. Maybe someone more techie than me can get it to work properly.
Any chance we could get something like this with Google Maps? Would be easier to zoom in on the areas with the highest concentration, plus make it easier to expand to additional information (e.g. district boundaries).
davidh
Ha ha! Oh, sure, I’ll just log onto the new Google Crime! website and plot those out for you! 🙂
Thank you for the effort
Wow. Looks like we know where most of the Police force should be concentrated.
Platial is based on google maps and you can import addresses in a bulk group. I asked the city to send me the rental property list in Excel and I spent 10 min formating and importing it. It is very user friendly. The problem is not being able to view more than 20 markers at a time. You can’t get the full picture. Because it is based on google maps it can be customized; I just don’t have the skills.
The map says it all, cut down patrols elsewhere and do the job the tax paying citizens of Peoria expect you too do. It doesn’t take a genius to know that if you locate a few satellite police stations over this area, that the problem will be more isolated and successful to catch criminals and throw them in jail, and force them to move out of the area. To Chicago or somewhere else besides here…if they are caught and then released-only give them this option if they are willing to relocate. 99% of these low-lifes do not have jobs or anything to keep them here anyway.
The envoronmental advocate in me looks at this map, and clearly sees how the map is identical to the amount of Lead-based painted housing stock in the area.
-Westside Environmental Plan of Action Committee, Inc.
Ah yes…blame it on the lead paint. Cause the lead paint causes people to buy guns, shoot them in the street and at others, and disregard the laws.
The same correlation could be made to many other factors that have nothing to do with the propensity to commit crimes (lack of adequate sidewalks, old water pipe infrastructure, etc. etc.).
While lead based paint can be a major health hazard, I think it’s a stretch to begin indicating a correlation to gun discharges.
Lead paint is not a huge problem in homes that are well maintained. The key is to keep the paint painted.
But increasingly the older homes in town are housing people who apparently cannot afford or are unwilling to maintain their homes. Throw in landlords who care even less about the basic condition of the homes and it is no wonder that lead is a large problem in Peoria.
what about a correlation between crime and rental property? I’d bet its very high.
Its always something else that causes the crime. This time its lead paint. I say its the thugs who pillage the neighborhood and eventually get caught and serve 45 minutes in a holding cell, and then get released. This area is a poverty stricken area plagued by people making bad decisions in their life. If you want to dig deeper to see the true problem…may I suggest looking into the people in this area that have disabilities and collect welfare. After all, the parents decided to live in this area and put their kids into a house with lead paint…so it would be just as easy to blame the parents for lead paint that is affecting the children. Its just a matter of responsibility and accountability thats lacking in this area. The crime is going to continue in this area until the residents evolve into respectable, accountable, tax-paying citizens, that don’t live off of the governments teet.