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Lockhart police roll out community crime map; department to absorb $100 monthly cost
Summary
Police unveiled a LexisNexis-based community crime map to give residents block-level crime data and email alerts. The department will pay $100 per month; the map omits certain sensitive crimes and updates daily after supervisory approval. Council asked for public outreach and user follow-up workshops.
The Lockhart Police Department demonstrated a new online community-crime map, built through a LexisNexis platform and currently accessible at communitycrimemap.com, that is intended to give residents easier access to recent, block-level crime reports and customizable email alerts.
Police Chief Gary Williamson told council the map displays incidents by icon and clusters, allows date-range filtering and shows a patrol-district layer. Clicking an incident yields a brief, block-level description that excludes specific addresses. Users can sign up for daily, weekly or monthly email alerts for selected locations. Chief Williamson said offender-registry information is intentionally inactive on the city map and residents should use the Texas Department of Public Safety registry for the most current data; embedding a DPS link on the map might be possible but would require LexisNexis coordination.
The department will absorb the subscription cost, about $100 per month. Records feed to the map comes from the police records-management system and is updated daily after supervisory review; Chief Williamson noted this is not real-time because incidents must complete the approval workflow. He also said certain crimes — for example, sexual assault and child-decency offenses — will not be published to avoid revictimizing people.
Council members asked about outreach and training for residents; the chief said the city will push the tool on social media and on the city website and eventually embed it on the city’s new site. Several council members recommended follow-up public workshops, demonstrations targeted by patrol district, and a brief user survey after rollout so staff can collect feedback and improve usability. Staff also suggested adding the map to utility-bill communications as another outreach channel.
Chief Williamson demonstrated map features during the work session and answered council questions about filtering, district layers and the alert bell. The city plans to publicize the tool and monitor community use and feedback after launch.
