Philly Rap Sheet: web scraper shows new arrests in Philadelphia, made by Andrew McGill

 
Interested in who’s getting arrested in Philadelphia?
Then visit Philly Rap Sheet, “a web scraper that scans Philadelphia’s municipal court system every half hour for new arrests and posts them online,” says the developer, Andrew McGill. “You can filter by date, by bail amount, by crime, by the arresting officer and by the judge.”
Though for now the tool is dependent on court clerks uploading docket sheets, McGill, 23, said “they’re pretty prompt with getting this information online after an arraignment.”
McGill said the city courts online docket sheet database interface is fine for finding specific people but has always come up short in showing any more nuanced requests, like recent arrests or specific crimes on specific days.

For now, though a sure improvement, his side project is also short on features but he has plans for many to come, he said, like email alerts based on keywords or bail amount threshold. He’s also in the process of building an API that would allow third parties to query the data set, for options like an RSS feed, and is debating whether to move from its mySQL database to Google Fusion Tables for more open access. He recently added permalinks for individual arrests.

His clearest ask of the city courts to improve his tool is that more geographical information be included, like where the crime happened, “but you can’t have everything,” he said. His courts-based system also shows the divide between the legal system and the public safety agencies, which present their own data options.
The Penn State journalism graduate grew up in suburban Cheltenham and follows the local technology community, though he currently lives in Allentown working for that city’s daily newspaper the Morning Call.
“I’ve always had a passion for programming and web design, started out making computer games in BASIC in elementary school, am now versed in PHP/python etc.,” he said. “It’s a nice homecoming to be able to use those nerd skills in journalism.”
The project took three weeks of his free time, McGill said. The site gets about 1,000 new arrests a week, roughly 20 an hour during weekdays, McGill added.
“It endlessly frustrated me that while there was this great crime data out there, it wasn’t categorized in a way that made it easy to search,” McGill said. “By liberating this data, hopefully some meaning cross-referencing can be made and trends will emerge.”