The FBI released the quarterly Uniform Crime Report (UCR). There was a disclaimer attached that the figures were not accurate because police agencies were not submitting reports. So, what the figures have never been accurate. Remember the old adage: “Figures lie and liars figure.” Here is the Power Line link.
Here is where the FBI gets their statistics and what they do with the numbers.
Uniform Crime Reporting Program
FBI, Uniform Crime Reporting Program
The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program generates reliable statistics for use in law enforcement. It also provides information for students of criminal justice, researchers, the media, and the public. The program has been providing crime statistics since 1930.The UCR Program includes data from more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies. Agencies participate voluntarily and submit their crime data either through a state UCR program or directly to the FBI’s UCR Program.
Let’s break that quote down. It is a voluntary program. Police agencies do not have to participate. Not all crimes are reported in the UCR. Only eight offenses: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson are subject to reports. The local agency decides how offenses are categorized.
I can’t count the number of cuttings I responded to that never achieved the status of aggravated assault. Mutual affray, uncooperative victim and witnesses, calls backed up, and EMS ready to transport. Aggravated assault or assist EMS. Two hours of reports that will not go anywhere or three lines on a miscellaneous incident report. Assist Ambulance, 10-8 (back in service). Aggravated assault is a reportable offence on the UCR. Assault is not. Let’s see serious bodily injury or just an owie? That ain’t so bad. Threatening another with a deadly weapon is an aggravated assault. Then again maybe it is just disorderly conduct, not reportable.
Set a dumpster on fire that causes a fire department response is arson. Reportable on the UCR. Then again maybe it is just criminal mischief, not reportable. One police department I know of classified all business burglaries discovered by officers while on patrol as criminal mischief. The rationale being that officers didn’t have a complainant to identify what items had been stolen.
The reality is, the most effective crimefighters in any police agency don’t need a gun or handcuffs. They don’t need a patrol car, because it wouldn’t fit in the subbasement where they spend their days compiling statistics. All they need is a sharp pencil, an eraser and some whiteout.
