BRITISH POLICE EXPANDING CRIME MAPPING WEBSITE?

Website users will be able to track offences near public places and see what action police took

London:LONDON, U.K. - British Home Secretary Theresa May(right photo) says people will be able to track what crimes have been committed near public spaces like nightclubs, parks and shopping malls.
May yesterday said that a crime-mapping website for England and Wales that lets users track what crimes have been committed on a street-by-street basis will now cover places like clubs and rail stations where large groups of people gather.

• She said that by May the public will be able to see what happened after a crime took place — what action police took and whether anyone was convicted. The website maps crime in Britain according to neighbourhood. It launched last year and authorities say it has received more hits than any other UK government website.
• Meanwhile, police will no longer be able to ignore homeowners whose lives are being made a misery by aggressive youth, according the UK home ministry.
• Once three separate complaints have been lodged, officers will have no option but to take action, the report said. The same will apply if five individuals from five different households in the same neighbourhood complain about the same issue. If they still fail to respond, they can be hauled in front of a ‘crime commissioner', who will have the power to fire chief constables.
• Ministers hope the ‘community trigger' system will halt a string of shocking cases where police and councils have failed to intervene to prevent homeowners being tormented.

They want to prevent a repeat of the case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled 18-year-old daughter Francecca — who had a mental age of four — when her cries for help went unheeded. An inquest heard that the youth screamed obscenities at them, hurled stones and eggs at the windows, shoved dog excrement and fireworks through the letterbox, and threatened Pilkington's dyslexic son Anthony with a knife.
Despite receiving 33 desperate 999 calls in ten years, police said Pilkington, 38, was "over-reacting" and dismissed her as "low-priority". Unable to bear the torment any more, she decided death was her only escape, and killed herself and her daughter by setting fire to their car near their home in October 2007.
Source: AP