Features Technology
Empowering communities: Regina Police’s modern crime map for public access

Every year, the Regina Police Service receives requests for information from members of the community, people looking to move to the city, property developers and civil servants. People are smart, and they want to know what is happening in the areas where they live, work, invest and spend time.

Our elected officials wanted to be able to attend community meetings with up-to-date information about crime and offer tips on how citizens could become more informed. Wanting more information, more often and in real time is the nature of society, and policing is no different. Police agencies often use crime maps to reach these goals.

In late 2022, the Regina Police Service launched a new, modernized public-facing crime map which is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week and updated every 24 hours for viewing on the Regina Police Service website. This resource has proven to help engage our community in a way we have not been able to do in the past, while at the same time increasing awareness of crime trends in the city. In the first few days, the map was viewed over 20,000 times. Community members sent messages and emails to share their appreciation for the real-time information. Now, they can access information when they have questions, rather than waiting for a formal response from the police service. This innovation propelled the Regina Police Service by sharing crime trends with people on their schedules, right from their own devices.

Before this new map, the Regina Police Service was only able to share some types of crime on a hot spot map on the website. The information was uploaded once a month and had no filter capabilities. The new Community Crime Map gives the public the power to search areas, time frames and different crime types. The data can also be downloaded and used for information at another time.

Crime is always a matter of public interest, and it is frequently an emotive issue.” – Ratcliffe, 2002

Although public-facing crime maps are becoming commonplace in Canada, it is important that planning, stakeholder consultation and strategic deployment are considered. A balance between providing information to the public and protecting the privacy of victims must be paramount. At the Regina Police Service, the ability to modernize mapping technologies was first deployed operationally in 2019. The success we experienced laid the groundwork for additional reporting to be possible for public consumption. Once the tool became part of our day-to-day operations, our focus shifted to using the tool to help provide more information to our community. Careful consideration to ensure we adhered to local privacy legislation and the privacy of victims was critical. Although the process took months, consideration of all of these moving parts was imperative.

The planning process was not without its challenges. We began exploring the idea of a new map without a project manager or dedicated GIS specialist. Analysts and in-house information and technology personnel were tasked with developing, learning and delivering a new tool. We completed a search of other police agencies to see what was common, what was unusual, and how the crime data was displayed in other jurisdictions. Despite the hours of work and the need to develop skills in-house, the effort was worth it. Like many other police agencies, we recognized that a public-facing crime map could “have real potential to engage the public with local community problems” (Ratcliffe, 2002).

The map has been considered so intuitive and easy to use, ESRI Canada has requested the Regina Police Service map to be available as a template in their suite of tools. Additional plans to expand the map and the data provided are already underway. The possibilities seem endless, from adding media release linkages, hot spot analysis, calls for service data and even storyboards. The next few years will be a time for exploring priorities and adapting to the needs of our community using this online mapping tool.

Amy Balfour is the Manager of Strategic Services at the Regina Police Service.