In Seattle, the number of reported homicides has risen from 9 total in 2011, to 23 in 2012, a 156% increase in less than a year according to police statistics. While the overall percentage of violent crime in Seattle is relatively low compared to cities of similar size in the U.S, the speed at which these rates have risen is certainly disconcerting to authorities.
In a city that prides itself on always being ahead of tech trends, hosts some of the largest computercorporations and hottest start ups in the world and was even named the number city in the United States for tech jobs, it is no of no surprise that when faced with adversity, Seattlites turn to tech.
Seattle-area iphone apps, blogs and social media resources have been popping up at an increasing rate to promote safety awareness or decrease levels of crime.
Seattle entrepreneurs Robb Monkman and Grant Wallace recently launched the app React Mobile for iphone and android, which sets phones up with SOS alerts that can be shared via email, text or social media, GPS location sharing, and an emergency reporting system. The app is meant to work better than carrying a weapon or pepper spray for safety, because it would not be able to be used against the victim in a crime. Both Monkman and Wallace have experience in the Seattle tech industry as well as in public safety which allowed them to not build a technically solid app but also to build it off of successful safety techniques. In June, a similar iPhone app called iWitness was released by Seattle founder Greg Heuss to help victims record court evidence of crimes as they happen to use later in court. Heuss worked with female focus groups and the local police department to develop the app, which allows users to press one button that will call 911 for them, record video and audio evidence to a secure online server for use as evidence and send up to six texts to a list of friends or family with a pinpointed location and map.
The Seattle Police Department has also recently developed a tech-savvy system called ”Tweets-by-beat”, which provides 51 hyper-local Twitter accounts in addition to their standard @SeattlePD account, which feed off of police officers’ beats to provide residents with direct information about the police activity and crime within their specific neighborhood. The twitter accounts are all organized on Seattle.gov/police/tweets where residents can enter their address to find the account for their neighborhood precinct. For example, if you enter an address in Montlake, you will be linked to follow the beat Charlie 1 on the East Precinct account @SeattlePDC1 where can read tweets such as “Beat:C1, SUSPICIOUS PERSON at 23XX BLOCK OF FRANKLIN AVE E reported on 10/10/2012 1:37 AM.” The tweets are not released until the police call is closed, to keep criminals from using the system from their advantage, but are still significantly more immediate than waiting for press coverage on the crime. If multiple robberies occurs in the University District around 6am, residents who follow Tweets-by-beat can read about it as they scroll down their iphone feed at breakfast that morning and keep an eye on their walk to the rather than finding out about the crimes later on in the media. Sgt. Sean Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Department Public Affairs office says he hopes that with Tweets-by-beat “people will take the time to use some common sense to reduce the likelihood of them being victims of crime.”
Beyond social media, the local government is also looking to bring a new tech development called Shot Spotter to pinpoint and target crime in Seattle. Recently, Mayor Mike McGinn proposed bringing the system, which is already used in 70 cities, to Seattle to speed up police response time and decrease the rate of fatal shootings in the city. Shot Spotter is essentially a set of mobile gunshot locators that pick up audio and video and have the ability to detect the exact sound of a gunshot within fifty feet of each locator’s microphone and camera. Once a gunshot is detected, the system would send an exact location to officers to respond to, much faster than it would take for a bystander or neighbor to call 911 and give a location. Despite the city currently’s $32 million budget deficit, McGinn proposed spending $950,000 tax dollars on Shot Spotter over the course of two years for installation and operation in his 2013-2014 budget.
While it is unclear if these new tech developments will be able to actually reduce violent crime, the future of police and safety initiatives in Seattle will be centered on tech. In September, Seattle Police Chief John Diaz announced that “data-driven policing is the future across the nation” and that the Seattle police department has “researched national best practices on data-driven policing and are now using crime data to deploy our resources where they are needed most” in order to be “responsive to changing community needs and keep on top of emerging trends.”