Map crime in your area

If you’ve ever been curious about what kinds of criminal activity happen in and around your neighborhood, there is one easy way to check without having to leave your home.

It’s called crime-mapping.

From vehicle burglaries, assault, even fraud, you can find the location where these crimes occur within a one block radius at www.crimemapping.com.

“We’ve included things like assaults, batteries, thefts, frauds, sex crimes and even the more aggravated assault and homicide crimes,” said Sgt. James Hoffman with Idaho Falls Police.

Within a two-mile radius of the Idaho Falls Police Department, 207 crimes were listed between August 1-28. Forty-seven of those crimes were theft or larceny, 33 were assault and 24 were disturbing the peace. Those were the top three.

“It’s helped out and we can receive notices without the police having to call us, which they used to do,” said Lani Landon, a Neighborhood Watch organizer.

Neighborhood watch groups use www.crimemapping.com as a tool to alert neighbors of suspicious activity and keep their communities up-to-date on the latest crime trends in their area.

“There’s so many ways that I think it’s helped our neighborhood become so much more crime-free,” said Landon.

The website is very detailed. Information can be broken down by weeks and even holds records as far back as six months.

For the month of August, the report shows that Thursday is the most popular day of the week for crime, when an average of 35 crimes occur on this day.

For a map of Idaho Falls crime, see http://www.crimemapping.com/map/id/idahofalls.