Students have a new resource to help keep them diligent about on-campus crime through a crime mapping site.

UCrime.com, an interactive website that tracks crime at more than 170 campuses across the United States, became available at Duke University in August.

The website provides specifics like the date, time, location and type of crime using information in releases from the Duke University Police Department.

“Our goal at UCrime is to disseminate crime information so students can make safer decisions in their daily lives,” said Greg Kastner, the site’s co-founder.

But Maj. Gloria Graham, DUPD operations commander, warned students against relying too heavily on the information the website provides.

She said the site does not always paint an accurate picture of the amount of crime taking place on campus.

“The information on the UCrime Duke page contains inaccuracies,” Graham wrote in an e-mail. “It shows two robberies occurring on [June 13, 2008] within 15 minutes of each other.

“If you look more closely at them, the second one is actually an arrest of the robbery suspects in the first. The two ‘robbery’ icons were actually all one incident.”

She added that the site is not updated regularly, noting that the site itself states that it does not guarantee accuracy or completeness of information.

But Kastner said any inaccuracies on the website are from DUPD’s reports rather than an error of their own.

“We get information directly from the police departments,” he said. “What we put on the website is exactly what we get-no editing, no scrubbing, no altering, no deleting.”

Students who register with the website can report crime as well, though some said they would not find it useful to do so.

Freshman Caroline Buck said she might be more inclined to check the site, but she noted that reliance on the site would not be necessary for accessing such information.

“I mean, Duke sends out e-mails about crime that happens here,” she said. “I used a website once to find out if there was a rapist back on my block at home. So, if I was curious about something, I would use it.”