Hamilton County residents have two additional options for keeping an eye on crime and communicating with the Sheriff’s Office.
The office on Wednesday unveiled a new crime data dashboard and mobile app that are now available to the public.
“We believe the public should have the opportunity to see what is happening in their neighborhood,” Sheriff Austin Garrett said at a press conference.
The start-up costs for the dashboard and app were covered by a state Violent Crime Intervention grant, Garrett said. The license for the dashboard cost $42,887 and the app cost $24,985, the office said. There are ongoing costs to maintain both platforms, and those expenses cannot be covered by the one-time grant.
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DATA DASHBOARD
The dashboard includes crime data for the unincorporated parts of the county for the past three years and is updated at midnight each day, Garrett said. It does not include data from communities within the county, such as Chattanooga or East Ridge.
Users can view the data for different time periods, compare the development of the number of certain crimes and filter by their own zip code or street.
“If crime is going up, we want you to know,” Garrett said. “It’s not something we want to keep secret.”
Crime data is visualized as hotspots on a map. When zoomed in, users can see information about individual incidents. The data is anonymized to protect victims, officials said.
“We get calls all the time from people who want to move to Hamilton County,” said Deputy Chief Mark Hooper during the press conference, “asking for crime statistics in a particular area.”
This tool allows people to explore these statistics for themselves, Hooper said.
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Other dashboards, like the Chattanooga Police Department’s incident data dashboard, pull data from calls. The sheriff’s office dashboard only includes incidents for which a report has been written, not all calls, said crime analyst Jessica Elsmore.
The dashboard has been in the works for years – Elsmore said she created the first demo version in 2019.
It appears to be one of the first of its kind in Tennessee, officials said. For inspiration, crime analysts looked at the dashboards of larger agencies such as Los Angeles and New York.
“I mean, we just had to Google it,” Elsmore said in an interview.
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Elsmore said the dashboard will also help sheriff’s deputies who ask the crime analyst for data on crime trends and hotspots.
Ultimately, data from cities and towns within the county could also be integrated into the dashboard, office spokesman Matt Lea said after the press conference.
The dashboard also has a survey feature that allows residents to submit ideas and feedback about the platform.
MOBILE APP
The Sheriff’s Office has also developed a mobile app that is available for iPhones and Androids.
Users can use the app to submit crime tips, search for active arrest warrants, look up jail and inmate information, and request reports.
The app will also send alerts about critical incidents and weather events that pose a potential threat to the public, software specialist Spencer Smith said in an interview.
It also includes links to the crime data dashboard, a resource directory, and information on fraud, animal services, recruiting, and office operating policies.
Contact Ellen Gerst at [email protected] or 423-757-6319.
