An exploration of the progress of open crime data: how do ongoing limitations with the Police.uk website restrict a comprehensive understanding of recorded crime?

Abstract

Open source crime data provided by the Police.uk website was introduced in 2008. This provision challenged what had been termed a 'top down' political culture and was introduced to help increase government transparency and accountability. We examine these concepts here and outline some of the significant developments over the last decade related to the information contained within the Police.uk resource. Our focus then moves towards limitations of the data set provided, some of which are as pervasive today as they were when this online data source was first introduced. We explore whether these drawbacks are irresolvable and consider the practical implications they will have when this open data set is utilised by members of the public and researchers. Ultimately, we give an assessment of the efficacy of this source of information for the user within the context of the government rhetoric which accompanied it.

Explicando la delincuencia en Barcelona: ¿Desorganización social u oportunidades del turismo?

“…Respecto a las limitaciones asociadas a los datos policiales, algunos delitos podrían estar sub o sobrerrepresentados debido a factores como la necesidad de denuncias previas, como ocurre en reclamaciones de dinero a las aseguradoras (Quinn et al, 2019). Además, la discrepancia en las tasas de denuncia entre turistas internacionales y residentes locales introduce una variabilidad que debe ser considerada al interpretar los resultados (Buil-Gil & Mawby, 2023).…”

Digitalization, accounting and accountability: A literature review and reflections on future research in public services

“…A considerable number of studies focused on open government data (50), with these papers assessing the “maturity level” of open government data (portals) (Alzamil & Vasarhelyi, 2019; Park & Oh, 2017; Wen & Hwang, 2019). More recent papers have taken a more critical stance and empirically investigated data disclosure strategies (e.g., Ruijer et al., 2020), as well as the challenges associated with the (re)use of open government data in various public service contexts (e.g., Marjanovic & Cecez‐Kecmanovic, 2017; Quinn et al., 2019). These have discussed their impacts on value creation, transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement (e.g., Birchall, 2015; Boudreau, 2020; Garcia, 2019; Zuiderwijk et al., 2019).…”

“…As ordinary citizens “are not likely to have the tools or expertise required to produce sophisticated analytics on their own” (Kozlowski et al., 2018, p. 155), some papers have highlighted the potential associated with easy‐to‐use portals or applications and integrated data visualization tools (Dai & Li, 2016; Kozlowski et al., 2018; Machova & Lnenicka, 2019; Quinn et al., 2019) with regard to empowering citizens to engage with data (Piotrowski et al., 2018) and/or hold governments accountable (e.g., Boudreau, 2020; Kozlowski et al., 2018; O'Leary, 2015). Others have pointed out that intermediaries (e.g., NGOs, hacktivists, journalists, civic entrepreneurs, researchers) (Birchall, 2015; Boudreau, 2020) play an important role in “bridging the gap between data producers, governments and their end users, the citizens” (Boudreau, 2020, p. 3).…”

Fool’s gold? A critical assessment of sources of data on heritage crime

“…This provides access to a sterilised data set -covering aggregated crime type, approximate location and outcome -with the aim of improving accountability of the police service (Shadbolt et al, 2012, p. 16). Privacy legislation, such as the Data Protection Act 1998, in part limits these data, making it deliberately obfuscated for public consumption which severely limits its utility (Quinn et al, 2017). Of particular interest here is that not only is there no category for heritage crime -about which more later -but nor is there a way in which to overlay heritage assets with the available crime data as addresses are obscured.…”