I don't really have to extol the virtues of Web 2.0 technology or the nearly endless power of people working together online, do I? Yeah, I didn't think so. So, let's get down to it: Your assistance is wanted, and needed, to try and help solve a year-long string of burglaries in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Not just any burglaries, but the fairly regular and repetitive violation of the city's houses of worship, about seventy times in the last fifteen months.
If you live here, that's obviously great. But, even if the closest you've ever gotten to Minnesota is following the Coleman/Franken Election That Never Ends online, you can still help, thanks to the power of the internet.
We don't want, or need, your money, your pooties, or your pie. All we need is a little bit of your time and effort - time and effort in front of your computer, even...
So, here's the deal: Since January 2008, there have been between seventy and eighty burglaries and alarms at churches across Saint Paul. Most involve forced entry with considerable property damage, and the theft of cash, musical equipment, and electronics. With two exceptions, no church has been burglarized twice. The police have not a lot of evidence and little in the way of suspects for most of these incidents, and did the obligatory calling-upon of the public to come forth with any assistance, et cetera, et cetera.
Thanks to a local blogger and friend of mine, they got a wee bit more than they bargained for, however.
A lot of the raw crime data was made available under an open records request, and an effort has begun to "crowd source" analysis of these burglaries. Thanks to the volunteer assistance of some professional intelligence analysts, the undertaking is building momentum, and now has a pretty nifty (IMO) support framework behind it.
All that's needed right now are more people. You can help, no matter where you are in the world; everything is being done online, on a wiki and a database portal.
Obviously, helping solve these burglaries would be great - but just as great, perhaps, is the ability to demonstrate the "real world" power of the internet. (I'd say "the netroots", but this really isn't political, and shouldn't become so.) So you don't live here? Why let geography get in the way, online? The Saint Paul Police have been forward-thinking enough to take a chance on this whole "internet" thing; if this works out, who knows? It could be your city appealing to the internet for help a few months from now.
A community becomes - hopefully - safer; a cash-strapped police department gets free assistance from the global community; the global community steps up to help make a difference; the power of "the tubes" is harnessed for good, and that whole Web 2.0 thing triumphs once again. Everybody wins!
If you'd like to help out - please, please, pretty please - you can check out the fairly nifty geospatial database here, and get a glimpse of what could be the future of community-powered policing by visiting, joining, and contributing to the project's wiki here.