projo.com | Subterranean Homepage News

« Raw links II | Main | Peek at the future: Net access anywhere in R.I. -- on the go and in the woods »

June 29, 2006

Graffiti reporting: A tech view

As Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline announced his graffiti task force today, Jim Willis sends along a pointer to his item on the Summit Neighborhood Association blog, City takes first steps towards addressing graffiti problem: (Link fixed)

...Another initiative referenced in the release is that citizens can file a graffiti report electronically at the city’s website. Unfortunately, the graffiti reporting tool is yet another government run roach motel (in that data goes in, but it never comes back out). Providence must follow the lead of other large cities (Chicago’s ICAM data drives chicagocrime.org or Washington DC’s Service Request data) that are using technology to increase transparency and visibility into city services.

What is missing on the City’s graffiti reporting site is a view of the data that citizens have submitted. ...

In a comment, he points to this reporting tool from the Lewisham section of London, where photos of trash document the problem and citizens are encouraged to upload the photos from their cellphones.

(Jim is IT director for the Secretary of State's office, and a Summit resident.)

Posted by Sheila Lennon at 3:50 PM | Permalink

Comments

I'm not sure it's a good idea to have photos on the web. That would just encourage people who do the graffiti. As I understand it, getting rid of the graffiti as promptly as possible is the most effective way of reducing it. After awhile people just get tired of spending time in vandalism if the results disappear in a day.

They also need a simple to remember number so people can call it in when they see it. Suppose you're driving by and barely know the street names, whose going to remember when they get home or to work and log on to report it.

Posted by: kat on June 29, 2006 7:05 PM

Hello, I work for the company that has been working with Lewisham on camera phone technology. They've found that since using the technology they've removed three times as much and the time taken to do so has come down from over 2 days to under 1.

Kat is right that removing the graffiti as quickly as possible seems to be the key. What the camera phone technology can do is mean that people are reporting more (because it's instantaneous), and the operatives know exactly what they have to remove and where it is.

The website is an indication to the members of the public using the service that the council is taking the issue seriously and that they want to close the communications loop. So far that seems to be working.

Posted by: Andrew Brown on June 30, 2006 2:48 PM

Kat:
it's not so much the photos that were of particular interest to me, but rather the instant feedback from government w/r/t the status of the request. Government's failure to use technology to increase transparency and provide accountability (esp. when the only barrier to implementation is political will) is what I think is at issue here.

Posted by: Jim on June 30, 2006 5:17 PM