POLICE.UK

For more than a year now, the United Kingdom's Home Office has been hosting a website called POLICE.UK.  According to the description on the site, this map driven outreach and awareness effort provides individuals residing in England and Wales with, "helpful information about crime and policing", for the area where they live.  Indeed, the site offers several interesting features including an option to learn all about the officer(s) responsible for a particular location.  To give it a go, click the link below.  Then type in "Fishborne" (or any other city you might know in England or Wales) to see results for a small town.  Results for a larger town can be seen by panning over to Chichester.

POLICE.UK  

Comment: Initially, this effort got off to a rough start when it was released to the public.  First, it crashed under the load of 18 million hits an hour as citizens investigated their neighborhoods.  Second, many individuals complained crime data was inaccurately portrayed.  (For more, click here for a Guardian article from last year).  However, with time there appears to be fewer reports of bugs and the Brits deserve credit for tackling such a mammoth project.