Retired Officials Question Integrity of Crime Reports (in NYC)

New York Times ^ | February 6, 2010 | William K. Rashbaum

[reaganaut1]

More than a hundred retired New York Police Department captains and higher-ranking officials said in a survey that the intense pressure to produce annual crime reductions led some supervisors and precinct commanders to manipulate crime statistics, according to two criminologists studying the department.

The retired members of the force reported that they were aware of instances of “ethically inappropriate” changes to complaints of crimes in the seven categories measured by the department’s signature Compstat program, according to a summary of the results of the survey and interviews with the researchers who conducted it.

The totals for those seven so-called major index crimes are provided to the F.B.I., whose reports on crime trends have been used by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to favorably compare New York to other cities and to portray it as a profoundly safer place, an assessment that the summary does not contradict.

In interviews with the criminologists, other retired senior officials cited examples of what the researchers believe was a periodic practice among some precinct commanders and supervisors: Checking eBay, other Web sites, catalogs or other sources to find prices for items that had been reported stolen that were lower than the value provided by the crime victim. They would then use the lower values to reduce reported grand larcenies — felony thefts valued at more than $1,000, which are recorded as index crimes under Compstat — to misdemeanors, which are not, the researchers said.

Others also said that precinct commanders or aides they dispatched sometimes went to crime scenes to persuade victims not to file complaints or to urge them to change their accounts in ways that could sometimes result in the downgrading of offenses to lesser crimes, the researchers said.

[reaganaut1]

Whether it is crime statistics, unemployment and inflation numbers, or climate data, assertions made by government and academia should not be accepted uncritically.

[Cacique]

btt

[1776 Reborn]

Apparently, some police departments have changed to a system where they now count multiple crimes by the same person on the same day as one crime. Amazingly, the crime
rates are going down in some cities in one of the worst
economies we have ever experienced!

[A_Former_Democrat]

Politics, politics, everywhere
Ethics, morals . .nobody cares

[Scotsman will be Free]

What was that TV serial a couple of years ago on HBO about dope dealers in Baltimore? If I recall BPD, in the show, had compstat, and they jiggered the numbers as well. Life imitates art.