under UCR, only the most severe crime gets reported. so for instance, if someone broke into a home, raped the homeowner, murdered them, stole their car and fled. it would be counted as a murder. there's all kinds of weird rules for counting up crimes in it. I used to compile some of the stats.
the bigger prob with UCR is the "safe cities" that prize their low crime rep. so... sometimes a robbery is looked at and it's decided that maybe it was a misdemeanor assault and a theft. theft looks better on crime stats than robbery. burglary maybe it's a property damage (part 2 crime) and a theft. you can see how a mayor or a chief could decide that's the best course of action.
NIBRS is intended to fill the gaps by counting crimes and incidents. but, as you said, requires training and tech upgrades.
short staffing is tough. when I was on the job, we patrolled a very rough city one summer. on my midnight shift, often it was just two of us. this has been years ago, but when we were that short, things got resolved without reports.
many cities, see Philly or stl, are only responding to certain types of calls. others get sent to an operator to take a phone report. when I lived in stl, my car was broken into 3-5x a year. before I was a cop, i made one report--realized no one cared and quit calling.
I agree with your read. crime is up, reporting is down and the media is laying cover in an election year. bad times
I agree. there's very few folks that are honestly looking at the data. truly believe this will be a ten-year problem once people begin to work on it. right now, it's like when DS Barrientos told my company to do 25 4-count mountain climbers, but any time someone was out of time or quit we had to start over... "0.... 0... 0...". poor Charlie company, we started with 25 mountain climbers and ended up climbing a mountain
Spot on! The claim that crime is down is dishonest, and a dangerous punch in the gut to the line officers who are out there fighting actual crime. True crime numbers are not only a report card for a citizen to understand their safety level, but also justification for an agency to ask for state/local money to hire more officers, particularly in high crime areas where they are needed. Citizen reports of crime is down and so are the methods that an agency uses to report. My guess is that most agencies know of their changes, but find it too difficult to explain to the public, so they stop reporting until this "blows over" or until they are mandated. One category that can't be manipulated is the number of officers assaulted or killed by violent acts. That could serve as a barometer of whether the overall stats are being honestly reported in an area.
Great insights. Thanks, Andrew. That's one of the problems with distorted crime reports; they justify not having to increase a police department's budget.
This isn't the easiest stuff to disseminate and given the public short attention span, I see why agencies hesitate to address it.
There is only one metric that counts when it comes to crime. Do you feel safe to move freely about your city without the fear or victimization of crime? If the answer is no, the next question should be: Is my fear warranted or is it a perception problem. If it is the former, then crime is a problem, if it is the latter, it is a communications problem, which is generally a MSM negative influence combined with a lack of counter narrative. Most citizens are not familiar with the National Crime Victimization Surveys, and sadly, neither are most police leaders. Reported crimes are data points. Unreported crimes are data points. They both matter. If agencies and communities care about real safety, over perceived safety, they would do their best to capture any data they could to understand what is driving their crime.
Agreed. What I'd like to know is how agencies can develop strategies and base hiring decisions on incomplete data.
Some nonprofits and news media outlets try to make it seem like crime concerns are being exaggerated, as if we shouldn't believe our own instincts and experiences. They seem to rely solely on general statistics without diving deeper or interviewing the people whose lives are being destroyed because of cashless bail and fewer cops.
Also, if crime is truly down, then why has there been a surge in officers shot. The FBI even noted an increase in assaults on officers in recent years. Yet crime is going down?
One of my favorite Stephen Covey quotes is, “First seek to understand and then to be understood.”
The problem in the MSM is too many have this backwards, and that is what drives clicks and revenue. The truth is usually more mundane and less entertaining, so emotionally charged headlines rule the day.
Your question about hiring decisions, if I understand you correctly, is about how do we know how many officers we need to hire if our data is incomplete. This is a complex topic, but in short, agency leaders need to have a firm understanding of their CAD/RMS data, reported and unreported crime, and their own obligated versus unobligated time of their workforce. We must have strong internal data that captures what our officers are doing with the time they have and how we are prioritizing our allocation of resources.
Busy being busy is a common excuse in policing, we need to be busy driving value, and that requires a solid understanding of your communities core issues and knowing what resources you have to bring to bear to address them.
If we really cared to find the real numbers; maybe we could ask multiple colleges to compete for the task annually. Think about how fast and most likely realistically the Covid 19 data was compiled on state, national, and global stages. Two Chinese students with the support of one professor used a program named Tableau to create the graphics and visuals we all followed and tracked daily. A good major for study would be the collection, sorting, and distribution of all crime data with every category accurately measured.
Please take a look at the YouTube videos of Hans Rowling demonstrating Tableau in his Ted talk. It is an excellent demonstration of what data analysis is capable of. I can only imagine how quickly the American public would realize the significance of the actual crime statistics in this country.
There are samples available of crime statistics in Tableau if you Google: Tableau crime statistics. Most developers will share the methodology used in the development. Chances are they may have additional sources of data and the beauty of Tableau is you can upload data from a vast assortment of formats.
Glad to help. I have encouraged many younger people to pursue careers in data analytics as a result of my personal use of Tableau. Their first reaction when I suggest it to some of my college students was that they didn’t like math. I hate math too but, it’s magical what insights can be derived by data analysis.
Spot on! The San Antonio Police Department, of which I’m retired from, claims that crime is down in the city. That’s impossible when you have more illegals in SA, a Soros bought DA who’s soft on crime and wrongfully indicting police officers, shortage of manpower and recruitment difficulties, patrolmen doing less out of fear of administrative discipline or anti-police indictments… They’ve partnered up with a local university to conduct an “experiment” to reduce crime where they allegedly identified “hot spots” to occupy with two patrolmen in one patrol vehicle to sit with their emergency overhead lights on for a precise amount of time. Most of them are privately owned contained apartment complexes. When the crimes are obviously reduced in those hotspots, they take that percentage of reduction in the hot spots only and deceivingly tout it as a reduction in crime for the entire city.
You are right on again. As we approach the 10 year anniversary of Prop 47 in California, retailers don't even call the cops anymore unless there is bloodshed. However, they are leaving in droves. If online reporting doesn't work, like a computer issue and you can't submit, does the department even get notified of that? 99% of people who get referred to a self report feature that doesn't work will correctly assume that the agency doesn't care about their crime.
Thanks for your comments and private letters, everyone. Please keep them coming!
Someone wrote me privately and mentioned that my statement about crime increasing is open to questions. This is something I’ll be addressing in a future special report. Please know that this stuff is research-intensive and I do all of this alone (without the benefit of a law enforcement background), so it may take some time to prepare.
I also want to make all of this information as digestible as possible for civilian readers.
I agree with many of the statements in this article, crime is up and reporting is down - or manipulated. But I am perplexed as to how the percentage of unreported crime is determined. You state that in Chicago the is a 50/50 chance of receiving police assistance if shot, robbed or assaulted. How was this percentage derived? Did the victim self-report that they did not receive police assistance after being the victim of a crime? Was a survey used to determine a police non-reponse?
All 911 calls are ultimately given a disposition. I'm quite certain that 50% of the 911 calls have no disposition whatsoever. Additionally, there are a number of real-world explanations as to why a victim might believe that police did not respond, but a 50/50 statistic seems grossly exaggerated.
Here's a link to the article, which explains how they arrived at this number. I'm very interested to know where you think they may have gotten their analysis wrong. This type of input is helpful to me going forward. Thanks.
Mark, Wirepoints arrived at the 50 / 50 number by searching through Chicago PD 911 logs via a FOIA request. They looked at 783,000 high-priority 911 calls from 2023 and found that there were backlogs for 437,000 of those calls. In other words, there were no police immediately available for calls of a high-priority nature.
under UCR, only the most severe crime gets reported. so for instance, if someone broke into a home, raped the homeowner, murdered them, stole their car and fled. it would be counted as a murder. there's all kinds of weird rules for counting up crimes in it. I used to compile some of the stats.
the bigger prob with UCR is the "safe cities" that prize their low crime rep. so... sometimes a robbery is looked at and it's decided that maybe it was a misdemeanor assault and a theft. theft looks better on crime stats than robbery. burglary maybe it's a property damage (part 2 crime) and a theft. you can see how a mayor or a chief could decide that's the best course of action.
NIBRS is intended to fill the gaps by counting crimes and incidents. but, as you said, requires training and tech upgrades.
short staffing is tough. when I was on the job, we patrolled a very rough city one summer. on my midnight shift, often it was just two of us. this has been years ago, but when we were that short, things got resolved without reports.
many cities, see Philly or stl, are only responding to certain types of calls. others get sent to an operator to take a phone report. when I lived in stl, my car was broken into 3-5x a year. before I was a cop, i made one report--realized no one cared and quit calling.
I agree with your read. crime is up, reporting is down and the media is laying cover in an election year. bad times
Thanks for your insights, Chris. It's all very troubling.
I agree. there's very few folks that are honestly looking at the data. truly believe this will be a ten-year problem once people begin to work on it. right now, it's like when DS Barrientos told my company to do 25 4-count mountain climbers, but any time someone was out of time or quit we had to start over... "0.... 0... 0...". poor Charlie company, we started with 25 mountain climbers and ended up climbing a mountain
Spot on! The claim that crime is down is dishonest, and a dangerous punch in the gut to the line officers who are out there fighting actual crime. True crime numbers are not only a report card for a citizen to understand their safety level, but also justification for an agency to ask for state/local money to hire more officers, particularly in high crime areas where they are needed. Citizen reports of crime is down and so are the methods that an agency uses to report. My guess is that most agencies know of their changes, but find it too difficult to explain to the public, so they stop reporting until this "blows over" or until they are mandated. One category that can't be manipulated is the number of officers assaulted or killed by violent acts. That could serve as a barometer of whether the overall stats are being honestly reported in an area.
Great insights. Thanks, Andrew. That's one of the problems with distorted crime reports; they justify not having to increase a police department's budget.
This isn't the easiest stuff to disseminate and given the public short attention span, I see why agencies hesitate to address it.
There is only one metric that counts when it comes to crime. Do you feel safe to move freely about your city without the fear or victimization of crime? If the answer is no, the next question should be: Is my fear warranted or is it a perception problem. If it is the former, then crime is a problem, if it is the latter, it is a communications problem, which is generally a MSM negative influence combined with a lack of counter narrative. Most citizens are not familiar with the National Crime Victimization Surveys, and sadly, neither are most police leaders. Reported crimes are data points. Unreported crimes are data points. They both matter. If agencies and communities care about real safety, over perceived safety, they would do their best to capture any data they could to understand what is driving their crime.
Agreed. What I'd like to know is how agencies can develop strategies and base hiring decisions on incomplete data.
Some nonprofits and news media outlets try to make it seem like crime concerns are being exaggerated, as if we shouldn't believe our own instincts and experiences. They seem to rely solely on general statistics without diving deeper or interviewing the people whose lives are being destroyed because of cashless bail and fewer cops.
Also, if crime is truly down, then why has there been a surge in officers shot. The FBI even noted an increase in assaults on officers in recent years. Yet crime is going down?
One of my favorite Stephen Covey quotes is, “First seek to understand and then to be understood.”
The problem in the MSM is too many have this backwards, and that is what drives clicks and revenue. The truth is usually more mundane and less entertaining, so emotionally charged headlines rule the day.
Your question about hiring decisions, if I understand you correctly, is about how do we know how many officers we need to hire if our data is incomplete. This is a complex topic, but in short, agency leaders need to have a firm understanding of their CAD/RMS data, reported and unreported crime, and their own obligated versus unobligated time of their workforce. We must have strong internal data that captures what our officers are doing with the time they have and how we are prioritizing our allocation of resources.
Busy being busy is a common excuse in policing, we need to be busy driving value, and that requires a solid understanding of your communities core issues and knowing what resources you have to bring to bear to address them.
If we really cared to find the real numbers; maybe we could ask multiple colleges to compete for the task annually. Think about how fast and most likely realistically the Covid 19 data was compiled on state, national, and global stages. Two Chinese students with the support of one professor used a program named Tableau to create the graphics and visuals we all followed and tracked daily. A good major for study would be the collection, sorting, and distribution of all crime data with every category accurately measured.
Good idea!
Paula
Please take a look at the YouTube videos of Hans Rowling demonstrating Tableau in his Ted talk. It is an excellent demonstration of what data analysis is capable of. I can only imagine how quickly the American public would realize the significance of the actual crime statistics in this country.
Wow. I just checked out his life expectancy graph. This most definitely would be a beneficial tool for tracking true crime statistics.
There are samples available of crime statistics in Tableau if you Google: Tableau crime statistics. Most developers will share the methodology used in the development. Chances are they may have additional sources of data and the beauty of Tableau is you can upload data from a vast assortment of formats.
Thanks!!
Glad to help. I have encouraged many younger people to pursue careers in data analytics as a result of my personal use of Tableau. Their first reaction when I suggest it to some of my college students was that they didn’t like math. I hate math too but, it’s magical what insights can be derived by data analysis.
Spot on! The San Antonio Police Department, of which I’m retired from, claims that crime is down in the city. That’s impossible when you have more illegals in SA, a Soros bought DA who’s soft on crime and wrongfully indicting police officers, shortage of manpower and recruitment difficulties, patrolmen doing less out of fear of administrative discipline or anti-police indictments… They’ve partnered up with a local university to conduct an “experiment” to reduce crime where they allegedly identified “hot spots” to occupy with two patrolmen in one patrol vehicle to sit with their emergency overhead lights on for a precise amount of time. Most of them are privately owned contained apartment complexes. When the crimes are obviously reduced in those hotspots, they take that percentage of reduction in the hot spots only and deceivingly tout it as a reduction in crime for the entire city.
Thanks so much! Ah, now what you just explained sounds deceptive. All it does is give people a false sense of security.
You are right on again. As we approach the 10 year anniversary of Prop 47 in California, retailers don't even call the cops anymore unless there is bloodshed. However, they are leaving in droves. If online reporting doesn't work, like a computer issue and you can't submit, does the department even get notified of that? 99% of people who get referred to a self report feature that doesn't work will correctly assume that the agency doesn't care about their crime.
Thanks again, Roland! If people aren't calling the police, crimes don't get recorded, and thus it makes it look like crime is down. Sad.
Thanks for your comments and private letters, everyone. Please keep them coming!
Someone wrote me privately and mentioned that my statement about crime increasing is open to questions. This is something I’ll be addressing in a future special report. Please know that this stuff is research-intensive and I do all of this alone (without the benefit of a law enforcement background), so it may take some time to prepare.
I also want to make all of this information as digestible as possible for civilian readers.
I agree with many of the statements in this article, crime is up and reporting is down - or manipulated. But I am perplexed as to how the percentage of unreported crime is determined. You state that in Chicago the is a 50/50 chance of receiving police assistance if shot, robbed or assaulted. How was this percentage derived? Did the victim self-report that they did not receive police assistance after being the victim of a crime? Was a survey used to determine a police non-reponse?
All 911 calls are ultimately given a disposition. I'm quite certain that 50% of the 911 calls have no disposition whatsoever. Additionally, there are a number of real-world explanations as to why a victim might believe that police did not respond, but a 50/50 statistic seems grossly exaggerated.
Here's a link to the article, which explains how they arrived at this number. I'm very interested to know where you think they may have gotten their analysis wrong. This type of input is helpful to me going forward. Thanks.
https://wirepoints.org/if-youre-shot-robbed-or-assaulted-in-chicago-theres-a-50-50-chance-therell-be-no-police-to-respond-to-your-911-call-wirepoints/
Mark, Wirepoints arrived at the 50 / 50 number by searching through Chicago PD 911 logs via a FOIA request. They looked at 783,000 high-priority 911 calls from 2023 and found that there were backlogs for 437,000 of those calls. In other words, there were no police immediately available for calls of a high-priority nature.