You cant trust crime stats anymore (Chicago: crime rates, legal, statistics)

[heyjude1959]

Arguments ranging from "Other cities dont count "this"as a crime, or " The stats dont tell the whole story" have made crime stats virtually worthless without digging deeper.

For example: You have many many times will have an outright murder chalked up as some other crime, whether cause it was plead down or whatever.

And like the Japanse who got "busted" after DECADES of not even reporting what they considered petty crimes as too keep their "pride" intact, cities in the USA have now gone to the same tactics.

It should be simple but its not.

Its political correctness gone even madder

[oakparkdude]

I doubt that massaging the stats is a new phenomenon. Every since the first caveman hit the first cavewoman over the head with a club, police have had an incentive to alter crime stats to show that things are better than they really are. Its not due to PC, its CYA.

[aragx6]

While cops often want violence or other crime to go under the radar, sometimes they also want it to get lots of attention, so as to say "Hey, look at all the hard work we're doing" or "Crooks, don't even bother to try this; you'll definitely get caught"

That's why shows like "Cops" or "World's most unbelievable car chases" are on TV.

I have a friend who worked cops and courts for a downstate paper for years and he would get a call from the police department that they were going out on a big meth bust and invited him to come along and see it all go down.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by heyjude1959

Arguments ranging from "Other cities dont count "this"as a crime, or " The stats dont tell the whole story" have made crime stats virtually worthless without digging deeper.

For example: You have many many times will have an outright murder chalked up as some other crime, whether cause it was plead down or whatever.

And like the Japanse who got "busted" after DECADES of not even reporting what they considered petty crimes as too keep their "pride" intact, cities in the USA have now gone to the same tactics.

It should be simple but its not.

Its political correctness gone even madder

There is some "massaging" in that sometimes a triple-murder will show up in the crime stats as a single event, or sometimes an incident that is initially considered an accident is later ruled a homicide by the coroner's office. In that sense, crime reports lack total precision but they still paint a pretty accurate picture of what is happening in any given community or city. Furthermore, crime stats do not rely on a final legal disposition, at least not in Chicago, and not the way most cities report their crime stats either. A murder gets counted as a murder even if the perpetrator is never caught, much less based on the final disposition if the perpetrator ever is caught.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Drover

Furthermore, crime stats do not rely on a final legal disposition, at least not in Chicago, and not the way most cities report their crime stats either. A murder gets counted as a murder even if the perpetrator is never caught, much less based on the final disposition if the perpetrator ever is caught.

I'd actually strengthen this statement by changing "most cities" to "all cities". The arrest and conviction rates for most crimes are pathetically low, and this is an entirely different set of statistics from reported crime rates.

[andrew61]

I've noticed that in the FBI crime statistics, Chicago always shows up as "N/A" under the Rape category.

Chicago doesn't even report its rape numbers to the FBI. What's up with that?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by andrew61

I've noticed that in the FBI crime statistics, Chicago always shows up as "N/A" under the Rape category.

Chicago doesn't even report its rape numbers to the FBI. What's up with that?

CPD puts all sexual assaults in one category, so our stats make no differentiation between having your ass grabbed and forcible rape.