©2004 Reading Eagle Company By Jason Brudereck Reading Eagle
By Jason Brudereck

Reading Eagle

There have been a recent series of robberies and assaults in northeast Reading and a surge of shooting and car thefts in south Reading.

So Police have sent special details into those areas to combat the problems and made some arrests. Their efforts are a result of a new crime-mapping computer program called CrimeView that helped police identify problems, Chief Charles R. Broad said Friday during a press conference in City Hall. The system will be used so police can more effectively deploy their forces, he said.

The system is available to officers on the city's Web site at www.cityofreadingpa.com. Mayor Tom McMahon said the system lets the public know how police are faring against criminals. The information is updated twice daily, so it's an accurate accounting of recent crimes, Broad said. The system can be used to encourage residents to help police and to dispel rumors that crime is rampant throughout the city, Broad said. For instance, a persistent belief is that public housing in Glenside and Oakbrook breed criminal behavior.

But a crime-mapping search for serious crimes in those areas showed very little recent activity. "We tend to think of public housing as problem areas, but in some of these cases it's not," Broad said.

Broad said the system also can be seen as an economic development tool because companies considering relocating to Reading or simply buying property can enter in an address and see what nearby crimes had been reported recently. The crime-mapping data stops at the city's border, but Broad said he's not concerned the public will take that to mean crime stops at its border. "As you could see," Broad said after showing one map, "auto thefts in southeast Reading are working their way out Perkiomen Avenue to the edge of the city." He said he's hoping to form partnerships with suburban departments to share such information. The city bought the system from The Omega Group, a San Diego based company that makes geographic-information systems. About 400 hundred agencies nationwide have the program, said James B. Harrity, a Delaware County based sales representative for Omega.

The system will effectively battle crime because crime waves move fast around the city, and police can no longer rely on tracking them by putting stickers on a map on a wall, McMahon said.

"The criminal element seems to be fast on its feet," McMahon said.