Calgary Police Unveil Crime Reporting App

In a bid to join the mobile wave and help make Calgary safer, the Calgary Police have released an app to give citizens and visitors a better way to access police services and a faster way to report crimes.

Available for iPhones, Android phones, and Blackberrys, the app provides at-a-touch access to the Calgary Police Service's various social media properties, which the law enforcement agency uses to keep Calgarians up to date on important crime- and police-related events throughout the city.

Anyone with the app can also report a crime directly to the Calgary Police, though people reporting crimes in progress are still encouraged to call and speak to a live officer.

The app also allows users to view crime maps of Calgary that can be sorted by date and type of crime, as well as maps of local Calgary Police stations. Contact information and appointment booking for traffic service, complaint (or compliment) filing, and links to a variety of other resources are also available.

The Calgary Police Service hopes that this app, which is the result of months of research and development by members of the Calgary Police Service and outside consultants and contractors, will help reduce crime by creating a more aware public and making would-be criminals more worried about being reported. Better access to police services is also hoped to make service provision more efficient.

Whether mobile reporting with the Calgary Police app will be widely adopted by the Calgary public remains to be seen.