Don't always believe FBI Crime Stats

[Onward Allusion]

I didn't want to hijack someone else's thread, but I feel that some of you need to understand that FBI Crime Statistics are gathered from a sampling of cities across our country. Some of these cities, especially large ones, manipulate their crime data for one reason or another. Some of it is due to Federal funding, some of it due to tourism dollars, property values, votes...etc...etc... It really comes down to power and money. We are not the only ones playing with the numbers. Included is an article from the UK on the same type of shenanigans.

Why am I posting this you might ask? This is a section on Strategies.....etc, right? Well...plan your strategy with your eyes wide open instead of believing everything the mass media feeds you. If you really think the world is such a safe place, then don't carry. Don't sleep with a nightstand gun. Don't own a gun for protection.

As an aside, if one carefully analyzes the FBI numbers, one will see that crime in smaller cities actually has increased. Why? Budget cuts due to gigantic drops in property taxes as a result of housing...

So...plan accordingly...

Investigative Report on Chicago's reclassified crimes
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/May-2014/Chicago-crime-rates/

LAPD reclassify crimes
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-crimestats-lapd-20140810-story.html#page=1

Law Journal Publication - authored by Associate Professor, University of Kansas School of Law
http://blogs.law.uiowa.edu/ilr/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/A5_Yung.pdf

Trade/Professional publication questioning integrity of crime statistics.
http://www.policemag.com/channel/pa.../what-s-really-going-on-with-crime-rates.aspx

The overall decline follows a national trend that is 10 years in the making, says Tod Burke, a criminologist at Radford University in Radford, Va. “The trend is downward. This is all good news,” he says. <SNIP> “It’s a snapshot and we should take it as just that,” Burke says. Besides not including every city in the US, one disadvantage is that some municipalities may, intentionally or not, have different reporting methods for classifying certain crimes.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justic...-crime-in-2013-why-the-rate-continues-to-fall

Investigative Report from the UK and their crime reporting/classification
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ddling-crime-statistics-england-wales-figures

 

[Jim K]

And the President of the Chamber of Commerce tells the Chief of Police, "We can't have that much crime in our town, tourism would fall off." And the Chief decides that those drug dealers with holes in their heads were victims of a traffic accident.

Jim

 

[wally]

the Chief decides that those drug dealers with holes in their heads were victims of a traffic accident.

Or suicide by lifestyle.

 

[Librarian]

A decent St Louis Post-Dispatch article from 2010 --

The FBI warns that one city's crime totals can't be compared fairly against another's because of differences in how totals are compiled. And when a city — like St. Louis — changes the basic way it counts crime, it could be pointless to compare today's figures to previous years.

There is often a question of trust. Many U.S. police departments — New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta — have been caught deliberately under-reporting crime in the past.

The Post-Dispatch revealed in 2004 that the city police failed to notify the public after discovering an error that omitted more than 5,000 crimes from the previous year's totals, making it seem as though the city was safer than it actually was. The next year, the newspaper exposed the department's use of informal memos to keep some rapes and other crimes off the books.

 

[Drail]

Anyone been reading about what's happening in St. Louis right now? I grew up there in the 60s. I have no plans on ever going back for any reason. Google North St. Louis County riots. Oh, and they have already called for the F.B.I. to come out and investigate the mess and Al Sharpton is on his way there now. The last reports I read claim that some of the rioters are now (as in today) breaking into St. Louis County and Ferguson police officer's private homes for payback.

 

[jrdolall]

Politicians do what politicians do.

Columbus GA Mayor reported that murders were down significantly for the first half of 2014 as compared to the same time period in 2013. I don't have the exact numbers but it was close to a 10% drop! Impressive huh? It came out that the number was something like 21 for 2014 and 23 for 2013. That's not quite as impressive.
Last week there were three murders, all in the same apartment complex so that pretty much cuts off the bragging I would guess. The mayor said "....maybe these were just rule breakers" when asked about why all these murders took place in the same apartment complex. Ya think? Murderers are rule breakers? BTW the mayor has a law degree.

 

[lemaymiami]

As noted above, the FBI only receives the data that is reported (accurately or not...) from police departments around the country and then reports out the figures they total from those reports. It's pretty much a "garbage in, garbage out" proposition since some departments manipulate their numbers for any one of a variety of reasons...

I never saw any indication that my outfit (small 100 man department in south Florida) was ever doing this but was certain that a few of the larger departments in my area weren't exactly well acquainted with the truth..... particularly if they could get more funding from one source or other by manipulating things.... All of this was before 1995 in my case (retired out then).

As a corollary I'll tell anyone that nothing, repeat nothing, I was ever involved in was ever reported accurately by either press or TV.... I don't mean they didn't get the names right -you wondered at times what planet they were reporting about. As a result I read any report in the media with a pretty skeptical eye....

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Before I have cited the NYC Village Voice about the Schoolcraft Tapes scandal. NYPD Officer Schoolcraft taped his superiors ordered street cops to (a) pump up their stop'n'frisk numbers and (b) downgrade or simply not report citizen camplaints about crimes, including robbery, burglary, theft, assault and rape. More stop'n'frisk (numbers), less crime (official reports). And Schoolcraft? NYPD railroaded him into a loony bin to discredit him.

 

[Onward Allusion]

Ya know, anyone who brings up the counterpoint that "crime has been going down in this country for the last decade...why...[carry, lock doors, answer doors with care, avoid stopping to help strangers on dark roads, be aware of one's surroundings, shouldn't talk to the police, carry at home...etc...etc...etc]....

They need to be referred to a thread like this and have their eyes opened. This is especially true of those who live in or around larger cities.

Someone mentioned that they were tired of members demanding that unavailable facts and statistics get posted. Well, here they are. Do what you will with them, but just be informed before you make your decision to carry or not carry; stop and help a stranger on a deserted road; carry at home; open your door to strangers...etc. Be informed and aware, because it is not conspiracy theory when there are substantiated reports and numbers to serve as backup.

 

[MarkDido]

The FBI warns that one city's crime totals can't be compared fairly against another's because of differences in how totals are compiled. And when a city — like St. Louis — changes the basic way it counts crime, it could be pointless to compare today's figures to previous years.

A very true statement.

While some jurisdictions still report under the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), some states have adopted the NIBRS system.

In UCR, there is a hierarchy of offenses, and only the highest offense gets reported. For example, if during a home invasion robbery, a homicide and a rape also occur, only the homicide is reportable to the UCR.

In NIBRS, all offenses are reportable.

 

[mgkdrgn]

I really liked the one a few years ago in DC, guy was bound in chains and found (later) in the trunk of a burning car.

Was ruled a suicide.

 

[herrwalther]

There are multitudes of problems with the FBI UCR system. As well as the other criminal reporting systems such as NCVS and NIBRS. One of the biggest flaws with UCR is the difference between incident and instance. Someone could go out, commit arson, rob a business, steal a car, and shoot someone. But that would get reported to the FBI as only one of the crimes.

NCVS is a victimization survey so it is full of problems. NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System) tries to address all the issues with the UCR but it is underfunded and not adopted or active in all states. So yeah, crime reporting with the FBI have a ton of problems.

 

[Phaedrus/69]

Good points! However, I didn't base my choice to CCW based on a statistical analysis of crime stats.