FBI crime statistics must be taken with a dose of salt.

[JellyJar]

I corresponded with Jeff White before deciding to post this here.

In the debate on gun control the relation ( if any ) between gun availability in a society and the rate of violent crime is often used to argue either for or against the private ownership of firearms depending on wether it appears that more guns cause crime or prevent crime. In the US the primary source for crime statistics is the FBI's Uniform Crime Index that is published every year and which tries to account for all the crime that may occur in the US for that year. What is not generally known is that most the crime statistics contained in the UCI are not very accurate and that some are even totally worthless. The reason for the former is that many crimes are not reported to the police by the victims or witnesses or do not come to the attention of the police by any other means. For reference see:

http://books.google.com/books?id=9n...ow many crimes not reported to police&f=false

http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates

Provided that the chance of a given crime becoming known to the police in a given area do not change much over the course of years the best use of most of the violent crime statistics in the UCI is to allow people to measure the general increase of decrease of crime from one year to another. For example, if 60% of the rapes in a given area are not reported to the police for the year 1990 and again in that same area in 2000 still only 40% are reported then by comparing the number of rapes reported for the year 2000 can tell us wether the general rate of rape has increased or decreased since 1990 in that area.

Even the FBI cautions against using the UCI to compare one jurisdiction to another. Should you access the FBI UCI online at:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

and then choose a particular year such as 2007. Before the UCI for that year comes up you see the following message:

Caution Against Ranking
*
Each year when Crime in the United States is published, some entities use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties. These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region. Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents. Valid assessments are possible only with careful study and analysis of the range of unique conditions affecting each local law enforcement jurisdiction. The data user is, therefore, cautioned against comparing statistical data of individual reporting units from cities, metropolitan areas, states, or colleges or universities solely on the basis of their population coverage or student enrollment.
*
Also, from the UCI handbook updated in 2004:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/handbook/ucrhandbook04.pdf

Page 7, paragraph 2:

"City, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agency participants must classify and score offenses from the records of calls for service, complaints, and/or investigations......(P)articipants must record offense counts, not the findings of a court, coroner, or jury or the decision of a prosecutor."

Of all the crime statistics published by the FBI the most worthless must be the report of the number of justifiable homicides by civilians for a given year:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_15.html

As per professor Gary Kleck in his seminal work "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America" page 112, first paragraph:

"For a variety of reasons the FBI SHR totals for CJHs represent only a minority of all civilian legal defensive homicides (CLDHs). First, some cases that even the local police label as CJHs are not reported as such to the FBI."

A case in point involves Gordon Reid Hale III of Grand Prairie Texas. Shortly after 10:00 am on February 22, 1996 he was involved in a minor traffic accident. He was assaulted by Kenny Tavai and Mr Hale then shot and killed Mr Tavai with a handgun he was lawfully carrying because of a newly issued CHL. This was the first homicide committed by a CHL holder under the new Texas CHL law enacted the previous year.

At first Mr Hale was arrested by the Dallas police and charged with murder but was later cleared by a grand jury. See the following links for complete information:

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1996_1325536

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1996_1353877

That means that this criminal legal defensive homicide would most likely not be included in the FBI's expanded data table 15 of "justifiable" or "excusable" homicides.

See the article at:

http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/af4/seg106.shtml

For more information on one estimate of the actual number of criminals killed lawfully by civilians every year. Elsewhere I have seen an estimate as high as 3000 but I could not find a link on the internet this evening.

The only crime indexes published by the FBI that I accept as half way accurate are the ones that report murder for the US as a whole and for each state and local jurisdiction. Comparing these and the recent history of more states making civilian CCW possible shows that allowing civilians to carry CCW does not increase crime and usually reduces crime. If someone wants to argue in favor of restricter guns control laws they can not legitimately claim that in this country more CCW means more crime. Also, they cannot claim that handguns are not useful for self defense or of defense of another innocent person based on the few justifiable homicides reported by the FBI.

In future posts I will present evidence that the crime rates in Britain are higher than officially posted by the British police and that the true murder rate in Japan ( so called gun control paradise ) is far higher than the officially reported rate.

 

[Isher]

So

As my late Mother was fond of saying

"Figures lie and Liars figure."

What are you trying to get at here?


isher

 

[Alex45ACP]

One thing I rarely see mentioned in this debate is the "good riddance" factor. I believe that most of our violent crime is drug dealers, gang members, etc. preying on each other. If we controlled for this, our "true" rate of violent crime would be much lower.

 

[JellyJar]

Isher wrote.....

What are you trying to get at here?

and I wrote

The only crime indexes published by the FBI that I accept as half way accurate are the ones that report murder for the US as a whole and for each state and local jurisdiction. Comparing these and the recent history of more states making civilian CCW possible shows that allowing civilians to carry CCW does not increase crime and usually reduces crime. If someone wants to argue in favor of restricter guns control laws they can not legitimately claim that in this country more CCW means more crime. Also, they cannot claim that handguns are not useful for self defense or of defense of another innocent person based on the few justifiable homicides reported by the FBI.

( I should have said "more restrictive" rather than "restricter" )

Also perhaps I should have said instead..

Using only the crime index for murder and ignoring the others as not useful for this purpose, if you were to compare the per capita rate of murder for each state over a period of years since 1987 you would see that states that enacted more lenient CCW laws almost always saw a reduction in their per capita rate of murder. Murder is the most serious of violent crimes and is the one crime most likely to come to the attention of the police. We can reasonably infer that high murder rates equate to high rates of other violent crimes and vice versa. So we can therefore be quite certain that allow CCW reduces overall violent crime.

Also, those who argue that firearms are rarely used for lawful defensive purpose by civilians because the FBI reports very few criminals lawfully killed by civilians are wrong because the FBI has no idea how many civilian legal defensive homicides occur each year in this country.

I hope that helps.

 

[Isher]

Where to begin.........

OK

The classic quote

"An armed society is a polite society"

Tell that to the gangbangers.

It is, in fact, demonstrably untrue.

An armed, polite society is a fiction of the past,

If it ever was to begin with.

So let us start with that

And see where we go.

isher

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Armed Society

Tell that to the gangbangers.

They don't live in an "armed society."

They are an armed subculture in a largely disarmed society.

If society at large were, in fact, armed, gangs would find themselves increasingly met with force rather than compliance.

When everybody is armed, politeness becomes becomes a desirable -- nay, necessary -- condition of interaction.

 

[Onward Allusion]

They don't live in an "armed society."

They are an armed subculture in a largely disarmed society.

If society at large were, in fact, armed, gangs would find themselves increasingly met with force rather than compliance.

When everybody is armed, politeness becomes becomes a desirable -- nay, necessary -- condition of interaction.

+1

If the BG's were facing an armed populous they would think twice when thinking of doing harm. However, when the majority of folks are unarmed sheep, then the BG's have little fear of recourse.

 

[Isher]

Exactly my point.

isher

 

[ants]

Most folk are not aware of the UCR data base, nor understand its origin.

The FBI's annual Crime in the United States report is just one of three reports prepared annually from the uniform crime statistics data base, which is continuously compiled by the Uniform Crime Reporting program.

Since most folks know little or nothing about UCR and how the information gets to the data base, they may make unfortunate assumptions about the annual reports and what they mean.

At the Department of Justice web side (doj.gov) you can find the current annual crime report. Look down the right sidebar for tutorial information on the program. A better understanding of how the data is compiled and reported will certainly help us continue our informed public debate.



As noted above, UCR does not compile all the crime in the United States. It is compiled from actual police incident reports sent in voluntarily from local and state law enforcement departments. Small and underfunded local police and sheriff's departments find the UCR unmanageable, so they don't participate. In other cases, calls may be investigated but an incident report in the proper UCR format is never prepared. And obviously, crimes that don't get reported are not represented at all.

 

[Jeff White]

Using only the crime index for murder and ignoring the others as not useful for this purpose, if you were to compare the per capita rate of murder for each state over a period of years since 1987 you would see that states that enacted more lenient CCW laws almost always saw a reduction in their per capita rate of murder.

The one factor that has the greatest impact on violent crime is the number of males in the population between 14 and 28 years old. If you put the census numbers next to the crime rates you will will find that as the number of males in the 14 to 28 year old age group declined, so did the crime rate. It declined everywhere, not just in states where CCW laws were passed. When the crime rate took a little spike a few years back it followed the spike in the number of males in that 14-28 year old age group.

In 2004 the National Academy of Sciences did a study on the effectiveness of gun laws and much to the shock of the people who funded it (some of the money came from the Joyce Foundation) found no relationship between gun laws and the crime rate. Of course this was immediately blasted by some people on our side of the issue because it didn't prove that shall issue CCW lowered the crime rate either.

The truth is, violent crime is caused by a lot of complex socio-economic-cultural conditions, the biggest one being the number of males in a population between 14 and 28 years of age.

CCW laws have no public safety benefit. They benefit the individual but nit the public as a whole. No one is going to make me believe that people living in the ghetto areas of Houston or El Paso are in any less danger then if they lived in the ghetto in Chicago or DC. You could issue every non convicted person living in those areas a surplus 1911A1, 3 magazines and 1000 rounds of ammo and the crime rate wouldn't change.

If we had the political will to do something about our large urban areas and end the war n some drugs we could drop violent crime in this country to levels we haven't see since the 1950s.

 

[strambo]

I prefer the "National Crime Victimization Survey" (NCVS) produced by the DOJ as it addresses the issue of there being a "black hole" of crimes authorities aren't aware of. Actually, taking both into account gives the best picture possible.

Also consider that a reported crime rate going up or down can have zero coorelation to the actual number of crimes and just be do to more or less reporting.

For example: I would imagine the number of sexual harassment claims in the workplace increased exponentially following the identification of this problem and its being addressed in workplaces, via the media, new HR regulations and in service/employee trainings over the past couple decades. The number of harassment incidents likely never went up...they probably started falling immediately, but many were suffering in silence before as it wasn't an issue being routinely addressed.

A big media campaign extolling the virtues and benefits of reporting every crime, no matter how minor, perhaps offering rewards for every criminal successfully prosecuted, would likely result in both increased crime reporting as well as potentially decreasing crime rates, though the UCR would just show an increase in crime.

 

[everallm]

"Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics'....true then, true now......

As the DoJ states the figures, unless a national standard and enforced capture methodology is implemented, will at best be useful as a trend analysis tool.

The CDC's figures less in depth but are somewhat more coheremt as physicians, hospitals, coroners etc tend to be more consistent in reporting....even if only for liability, billing and re-imbursement processes.

 

[JellyJar]

Mr White could you provide me with either a link to that 2004 study or a least the title of it? I am not certain which study you are referring to and I would like to read it my self. Thanks.

Second I must respectfully disagree with at least some of what you say;

...violent crime is caused by a lot of complex socio-economic-cultural conditions, the biggest one being the number of males in a population between 14 and 28 years of age.

CCW laws have no public safety benefit. They benefit the individual but nit the public as a whole.

I disagree in part with the former because I believe that the proximate cause of crime is that for whatever reason too many people willfully and knowingly choose not to respect the rights of others. To say that "...violent crime is caused by a lot of complex socio-economic-cultural conditions.." suggests that people become criminals for reasons that are beyond their control. And that is simply not true. Almost every criminal knows that what they do is wrong, they just don't give a dam. The exception to this general rule is when there may exist a legitimate doubt as to the legality of one or more particular law. ( There are "illegal" laws that have no true legal or moral authority although you could still be punished for violating them. ) To quote Shakespeare "The fault dear Brutus lies not in our stars but in ourselves". You are correct about that particular age group of young males causing so much crime but still they are acting on their own volition, not under duress or something else they cannot control.

The latter statement is illogical. For example is A=1, B=2, and C=3 and S=A+B+C then S must equal 6. If for some reason A should be increased to 2, equal to B, then S will then equal 7.

The aggregate safety benefit to the public as a whole is the sum of safety benefit of all the people that composes that public. If you were to increase the safety benefit of just one person and not change the safety benefit of the others, then the aggregate safety benefit to the public as a whole will increase even it by an insignificant amount.

You may be right about not decreasing the crime rate in the slums of any city in Texas by providing all the law abiding denizens in them with firearms because I can assure you that almost all that live there who want firearms already have them!

 

[aquapong]

Statistics can be made to say anything someone wants for many reasons. The real measure of crime is to answer this one simple question..."Do you feel safe where you live, work, drive, etc."

 

[Librarian]

could you provide me with either a link to that 2004 study or a least the title of it? I am not certain which study you are referring to and I would like to read it my self. Thanks.

This one, I think: FIREARMS AND VIOLENCE, A CRITICAL REVIEW
Committee to Improve Research Information and Data on Firearms

 

[JellyJar]

Aquapong, you are only partially right

Statistics can be made to say anything someone wants for many reasons"

Invalid statistics can be made to say anything. Valid statistics cannot. It can be darn difficult to tell the difference between them though.

 

[fastbolt]

The cautionary statements made regarding the reported statistics contained in the UCR, prefacing being able to browse them, are relevant and merit careful consideration.

Yes, some crimes are not self-reported to law enforcement. You can find much speculation about the possible number and types. You can hear it mentioned when policing practices and allocation of resources are being discussed.

On the other hand, it's certainly a wise precaution to carefully consider some of the cautionary comments made in regard to the various surveys which have been undertaken on this subject, as well.

If the potential for reporting error & lack of self-reporting concerns you in regard to reported crime statistics, then the potential for the types of errors which can occur in survey samplings & interviews, as well as not being able to discount participant biases, or predicting participation across demographic groups, and the potential for differences in drawn inferences and conclusions, ought to be of at least similar concern to you.

At least definitions and methodologies are apparently being discussed and compared when it comes to attempting to gather and understand information regarding this complex societal issue.

 

[Ieyasu]

the true murder rate in Japan (so called gun control paradise) is far higher than the officially reported rate.

This I gotta see. Color me extremely skeptical. You did say "far higher." I hope you're not going to trod out the nonsense that Jpnz count family murder/suicides entirely as suicides.