TOPS

OVERVIEW

OPERATIONAL FEATURES

Inform the public about crime in your state by providing comprehensive, accurate data on an attractive, user-friendly website (TOPS).

TOPS is highly customizable. As the publisher of the data, you decide what Crime themes to make available to your users.

TOPS presents data pulled from the Crime Insight Repository and Reporting system developed by Beyond 20/20 in adherence to NIBRS standards.

Social Media

Users can share infographic information through their preferred social media feed. TOPS currently supports X, Facebook and LinkedIn, and can support the social media sites of your choosing.

Visual Access to Data

From the home page, users can then select a Crime Theme, such as Domestic Violence, Hate Crimes, Violent Crimes, Drug Offenses, or DUI, as well as a Jurisdiction and Date Range, and the website will produce an interactive infographic. The infographic offers useful definitions and the ability to explore different kinds of visualizations of the data, including easy-to-read charts and tables that highlight the most significant data points for the theme.

About the GIS Mapping Add-On for TOPS

For States interested in leveraging the value of crime location data, the GIS Mapping Add-On offers further incentive to collect this information in NIBRS records as a State-specific element.

STATISTICAL FEATURES

Advanced Users

For more advanced users, such as researchers and members of the media, the website lets users drill down into the raw data tables and use statistical analysis tools.

Use your customized TOPS to:

• Educate members of the public about crime in your state by providing clear definitions, appealing visuals, and accurate numbers
• Demonstrate your state’s commitment to transparency on crime data 
• Combat misperceptions and encourage community engagement in fact-based discussions about crime on social media such as X, Facebook and LinkedIn
• Provide raw data and statistical tools to more advanced users

GIS MAPPING ADDON

Deliver map-based, intuitive visualisations of state-level Crime data with click-through to correlating socioeconomic stats from the US Census Bureau.

Get the GIS Mapping Add-On for your Theme Oriented Public Site (TOPS) to:

• Allow users to access crime data through an interactive map, filtered according to the measures and jurisdiction types your state chooses to offer
• Support deeper, more accurate analysis of factors underlying crime with drill-down access to regional socioeconomic data not typically captured by state agencies
• Encourage agencies to gather and report crime location data with the shared goal of continually building transparency and public trust

About the GIS Mapping Add-On for TOPS

For states interested in leveraging the value of crime location data, the GIS Mapping Add-On offers further incentive to collect this information in NIBRS records as a state-specific element. 

When crime address or latitude/longitude can be pulled from most agency NIBRS records, this TOPS add-on produces an interactive, thematic map that makes it easy to visualize regional levels of crime and click through to the underlying data for further analysis. TOPS dynamically updates all charts and graphs to reflect data for the user-selected area.

Like TOPS itself, the GIS Mapping Add-On is highly customizable; users will view and filter crime data by the criteria your state has defined. In the image below, for example, the Crime Map shows data filtered for the Violent Crime Rate per 100,000 at the census tract level

Why Consider Offering Census Tract Data Filters?

Census tracts typically represent smaller catchments than agency or county jurisdictions.

When you offer census tract filters, users can easily access correlating socioeconomic data, as published by the US Census Bureau, including: Median Household Income (households); Minority Status (all persons); Urban/Rural Status (all persons); Poverty Status (households); Length of US Residence (all persons); and Age, Sex, Race (all persons).

Access to this type of socioeconomic information enhances the quality and depth of analysis, supporting greater transparency to the public and more effective policies.