We launched CrimeAlerts in October 2008. It’s still very early days, and there’s a lot more we’d like to do.

We’re hoping to expand the regions we cover, enabling more communities to post their own information to the site, and also send email alerts to keep local people informed about local crimes.

The idea for the site followed a typical house burglary in a rural Leicestershire village. It was my house, and it was the first time I’d experienced this fairly common, but very unpleasant event.

One more crime statistic

Returning after a week’s family holiday, we found a smashed window, and a house turned upside down by opportunistic thieves. We think we know who was responsible. But with no evidence, it’s become just one more entry in a crime statistics file.

Like many other villages, ours has a Neighbourhood Watch (NW) scheme. Our local NW co-ordinator is a serving police officer, living (but not working) in the village.

For the last year he has been sending email messages about local crimes to a growing list of subscribers. And it’s proving very popular, reaching around half the households in the village.

Similar schemes, but different options

Many villages are running similar schemes. But at the moment, they vary from village to village. Some link their emails to information on local websites. But many don’t have this facility. And more importantly, the information isn’t linked. Which means it’s impossible to search across a number of different sites.

The aim of this website is to provide a simple way for local communities to post information about local crimes to local residents. And for local residents to subscribe to email allerts – but only in the regions, and on topics, they are concerned with.

Enabling subscribers to choose which topics they want information on means they are not deluged with unwanted emails. It’s simple to unsubscribe, take a break from receiving the alerts, or to change a preferred list of topics.

Working together to offer a local service

I create websites for a living. Our local NW co-ordinator has extensive experience in local policing. Working together, we’re hoping to provide a service which will allow local communities to help protect themselves from local crime.

If you’d like to get in touch, please use our contact page.