Iowa City map tracks police calls by neighborhood

IOWA CITY - The Iowa City Police Department has a nifty new online map.

It let's you see a list of police calls in every Iowa City neighborhood for the past 30 days.

You can see the map here. Here's a link to the story.

Chief Sam Hargadine said the map came out of the public safety concerns on the southeast side this year. People wanted to know what the crime stats were.

Jorey Bailey, the city's crime prevention officer, said this is more community policing, something the city has been doing more of in response to southeast side issues.

Keep in mind when looking at the map that it tracks calls for service. If one neighborhood had 200 calls, that doesn't mean there were 200 crimes there in the past 30 days. A barking dog counts. And a medical assist. Of course, so does an assault.

Also, neighborhoods are different sizes. And some may have lots of businesses and therefore have more calls  like theft or an alarm going off. Neighborhoods with busy streets may see more traffic stops.

The point is, you should really dig into the calls before trying to compare neighborhoods.