The Metropolitan Police may not be releasing crime data, but that’s not stopping some people from developing UK crime maps.

"This week, the police department unveiled a computerized mapping program that allows the public to track police calls, from assaults to excessive noise calls, through a digital map posted on the department Web site…"

"[R]eporters are effectively ‘embedded’, with all the ethical and professional considerations that that should entail. The question is, is the pressure to produce web video bringing newspapers too close to the police?"

"New guidance will mean that there will be more crime mapping: a paper published by the Cabinet Office … notes … that ‘Police forces are due to provide standardised local information on crime, starting from Summer 2008 …’"

Boris Johnson vowed to introduce street-level crime mapping in London "on day one". Where’s our mashup dataset, Boris?

"A book and Internet blog written by a former Burton police constable has become a global publishing sensation. … The Mail revealed Pc Copperfield’s true indentity on Monday, and the fact that his pseudonymous home town was, in fact, Burton."

Loads of US papers are now producing crime-plotting map mashups. Here’s a list of them.

Good perspective-providing FOI story from the Surrey Mirror: "More than 220 youngsters have been reported missing in Mole Valley in the last two years - and the youngest was not even a year old."

"Sussex is in the grip of a high-tech crimewave with dozens of eBay customers being targeted by criminals every month."

"The Milton Keynes Citizen newspaper offices have been raided by police executing a search warrant as part of an investigation into leaks to the media."

"Two people have been cautioned for using people’s wi-fi broadband internet connections without permission."