I liked the idea.

According to the default view, a crime committed in Wisconsin appears in Minneapolis, MN. Additionally, other local crimes committed in Minneapolis appear randomly all over the metro area, with little or no correlation to where they actually happened. There is some clever screen scraping and scripting behind SpotCrime. Though apparently not clever enough. These observations are of my hometown, if this is a representative sample you will likely see the same problems.

At best, the results are not accurate enough to be useful. At worst, they can construct a dangerously inaccurate view of a community.

(See also: SpotCrime: Minneapolis)
(See also: SpotCrime)