St. Louis County police today launched an online crime mapping service that allows the public to find the location of incidents near their home.

The online database enables the public to enter an address and then view icons on a map listing the basics of recent crimes.

The public can find the database on the county police homepage at www.stlouisco.com/police/.

Only crimes that occur in the county police’s jurisdiction or municipalities that contract service with the county are contained on the site.

However, St. Louis County police chief Tim Fitch said this afternoon that all police agencies that use the county’s computer assisted report entry (enabling officers to call in reports for transcription and eventually approval) have the option of having their incidents included on the crime map.

About 60 percent of all St. Louis County residents — regardless of which police agency they are served by — may eventually be able to use the crime map to find out about incidents near where they live.

The interactive mapping site is updated once a day. Visitors can sort crimes by location, date, precinct and incident type.

Dots on the map contain letters such as “L” for larceny or “AA” for aggravated assault. Green dots represent property crimes; red dots person crime. Sex offenses will not be included.

A click on the dot gives the time, date and exact address of the reported crime. Visitors can also scroll through the map to view crimes across the county police’s patrol areas.

County police staffers developed the system and no outside vendors were involved. Because crimes in municipalities that use the report entry are entered into the centralized data system, they can easily be included in the mapping service for no cost, Fitch said.

Fitch said the mapping technology is an important community service, but also may be able to help officers better perform their duties.

“The public deserves to know what crimes are occurring in their neighborhood,” Fitch said. “We want them to be aware of it. If they look and see there was a burglary down the street, they need to know that. And that will also help them help us if they see something suspicious.”

County police also have uploaded their monthly and yearly crime statistics onto the site, joining an array of local departments — including St. Louis city — that allow the public to browse figures online.

Several other area police departments, including Kirkwood, Hazelwood and Maryland Heights, use the website www.crimereports.com to provide neighborhood crime data, summaries and mapping.

The county’s new system differs from that Web site because all of the incidents pegged on the map are approved police reports, not just calls for service.

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