The San Jose Police Department has begun adding crime incidents within the past month to the crime mapping site CrimeReports. The data is maintained for about 30 days so it’s research value is limited. There appear to be 3 other police departments that are uploading data and their archiving may differ. Washington D.C. police have retained crime activity reports for 2006 and 2007. Search by date or address, with an optional selection of crime type, to see a map with icons of the various reported crimes and their general location. A popup provides a description of the incident.

On the crime theme, VineLink has a new look but the basic features are the same. It still doesn’t list the participating jails and prisons, so you just have to figure that out when you search within a state or county. The opening page has a color coded map of the U.S., designating states that have “statewide VINE” (blue) and those in which some counties participate (kinda red). As in all criminal records matters “statewide” doesn’t mean the whole state. Gee, who would’ve thought! In the case of California, it means about 15 counties and, as all of us here know, it does not include the Department of Corrections.

Go to MapBuilder if you want an easy utility to create your own map themes and plot places, incidents and things. See the variety of maps that users have built and search by map places and other characteristics.