Want to learn about crime trends in your neighborhood? Here’s how to do it

IDAHO FALLS — Local law enforcement recently unveiled a new website encouraging residents of Idaho Falls and surrounding areas to be more aware of their surroundings. Here is how it works.

In February, the Idaho Falls Police Department and Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office introduced the Public Safety Incident Map, an interactive website, where anyone can research criminal and law enforcement incidents inside the jurisdictions of IFPD and BCSO.

Idaho Falls Police Department spokesperson Jessica Clements says the map is meant to increase transparency between law enforcement and the public.

“The map is intended to be a way for people to gather information about what’s going on around them, where it’s their business or neighborhood,” says Clements. “It’s readily available at their fingertips in a way that doesn’t compromise investigations or ongoing sensitive issues.”

According to Bonneville County Spokesperson Sgt. Bryan Lovell, the map does not include incidents handled by Idaho State Police, but will include cases that IFPD or BCSO assisted the agency with.

How it works

When looking at the map, you need to select a date range, whether you want to see BCSO, IFPD incidents, or both, and then the type of data you want to see, on the left side of the screen.

You can look at a specific area or county-wide, to research everything from airplane crashes, fires, missing people, welfare checks, and much more. You can also choose to select all incidents within a certain date range.

“One of the benefits of the public safety map is that you can look at things over a longer time frame,” says Clements. “If you’re wanting to see everything that happened in (your) neighborhood over the past year, you could do that.”

Once you choose what you want to see, gray dots will appear on top of the general area where a crime or incident occurred over 72 hours before.

Clicking those dots will bring you closer to the map, detailing specific incidents in red. The red dots will tell you the type of incident, date and time, incident number, and the general block address of the call so as not to invade anyone’s privacy.

“If you want to see everything that happened over the past month or things like that, then you can see what’s going on right in your area,” says Clements. “You can see it over time.”

The BCSO data includes Ammon, Iona, Swan Valley, Irwin, and Ucon. The sheriff’s office will also respond to some calls within the city of Idaho Falls, and IFPD primarily responds to calls within the boundaries of the City of Idaho Falls.

Lovell says it’s important to note that Ucon has its own police department that is not included on the map, but it will show data from incidents that the sheriff’s office has responded to in the city limits of Ucon.

Purpose of the site

As eastern Idaho grows in population, soon-to-be locals will often call the police departments to learn statistics about their potential new neighborhoods, says Clements. This website is a direct resource for that information.

“We get questions from people sometimes, whether maybe they’re moving, or they live in an area, and they’re like, ‘Hey, I just want to know what kinds of things are happening in this area, or are going on around me,’” says Clements. “And this is meant to give people that kind of information.”

The Public Incident Map is different than the PulsePoint app. PulsePoint tells users where their local fire department is responding to at any given moment, but does not update details about the incidents when they are over. The Public Incident Map is not meant to be used when a crime or incident is actively occurring, and instead gives users the history of criminal incidents.

The map is updated every 15 minutes, with a 72-hour delay, meaning incidents that occur today will be added to the map in three days. Clements says this is for the safety of officers, sensitive investigations and crime scene protection.

“We don’t want this to be a tool where people look at it and go, ‘oh, well I can tell there are a lot of police officers here, and I’m going to go there and see what’s going on,’ Because it can put them at risk, and it gets them in the way,” says Clements. “It makes it harder for officers to take care of what’s going on, and if we do have people that have ill intent towards public safety professions, we don’t want this to be a tool that gets used in that manner.”

Clements says another reason for the delay is to ensure all information on the website is 100% accurate by the time it is posted.

“Sometimes when information goes out really quickly, there are things that change or they aren’t always exactly accurate right at the start,” says Clements. “When there is that delay in place, they’re getting more accurate information.”

After creating an account, users are also able to pinpoint specific areas, such as their neighborhood, workplace, or near a business they own, and choose whether or not to receive notifications when an incident has occurred inside a chosen perimeter. To do this, click “create alert” near the top of the page.

“The hope is that it is something that lends itself to transparency, that people can see what is going on,” says Clements. “If there is information that the public needs to know immediately, we’re going to use other avenues and tools to get that information to them right away.”

According to IFPD, not all calls that BCSO and IFPD respond to are in the incident call list, as certain call types are excluded to protect sensitive investigations and victims.

The law enforcement agencies caution against using this map to “draw overarching conclusions about crime trends or police activity.”

“If you have a need for such activities, we invite you to contact the respective police agency for assistance, ensuring that you have accurate and complete data with a clear understanding of the information provided,” says the map website.

Lovell says the map is a great way for people to become familiar with the trends of criminal activity in their areas, and says he encourages people to contact law enforcement to talk about anything they’re worried about in any specific area of town.

“If people are worried about crime activity in their area and what’s going on, they can always call and talk to us about it,” says Lovell. “I think it’s really going to help people be aware of their surroundings.”

To find the incident map, click here or go to IdahoFallsPolice.com, then under the “Information” tab click on “Public Safety Incident Map.” You can also go to BonnevilleSheriff.com, then under the “Resources” tab click on “Public Safety Incident Map.”