SPOKANE, Wash. – The Spokane Police Department has introduced a new public crime tracking dashboard, aiming to enhance transparency and provide the community with real-time access to crime statistics and police activity across the city.
The dashboard, launched at the beginning of the month, offers users three options to explore: calls for service, traffic and collisions, and reported offenses. Previously, the police department released weekly reports with a broader view of this information. Now, the dashboard is updated daily, offering a more immediate look at crime data.
Police Chief Kevin Hall emphasized the department’s commitment to transparency, saying, “This is all about transparency. We have this data and we wanna share it.”
From the police department’s website, users can access the data dashboards. Hall noted the importance of aligning public perception with actual crime statistics, saying, “There’s a narrative out there where people, their perception of safety and crime doesn’t always align with the actual numbers and so we wanted to try to bring those together a little closer.”
The reported offenses section allows users to filter incidents by neighborhood and see trends over time. A developer explained, “This chart for the different council district has an additional filter for neighborhoods so if I live in District one, say I live in the Logan neighborhood, I can see just the offenses that have occurred in the Logan neighborhood and if I wanted to take a look at something like burglary and if it’s increased or decreased overtime in my neighborhood, I can drill into that level of detail.”
Chief Hall and other leaders within the Spokane Police Department view this dashboard as a significant step in involving the public in policing and understanding crime rates in Spokane. “Now this is their data. This is taxpayer funded data. We might as well hand it out to them so they can use it,” Hall said. “So this is a way to be transparent in the hope that the community will work together with the Police more effectively.”
This new tool aims to foster collaboration between the police and the community, ensuring a more informed and engaged public.
SPD Public Dashboard – City of Spokane, Washington
