As both political parties make conflicting claims about crime rates, discerning citizens often ask: Is crime up or down?
The answer from law enforcement should be straight forward and simply expressed in terms of what recorded crime data shows. However, explaining crime rates is anything but simple. Crime data is assembled in a system that has numerous statistical weaknesses and it is vulnerable to manipulation. It is a system that often leaves the average citizen wondering what we can believe in terms of crime rates and public safety.
The process for reporting and compiling crime statistics starts at the local level. When someone is the victim of a crime, they decide whether they will report it to the police. There is no legal requirement to report crime and there’s ample evidence that a high percentage of crime is never reported to the police. Some victims are afraid of retaliation from offenders, some victims don’t want to be bothered and others distrust the police or fear any contact with them. Therefore, the eventual crime rate is only a total of crimes that have been reported to the police, and thus it is an incomplete picture of total crime.
When a crime is reported, an officer completes a case report which is electronically routed to the police department’s internal records system. The reports are then summarized, and the totals are routed by each municipality to a state crime information center. In Georgia, local report summaries are routed to the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC). The GCIC in turn submits them to the U.S. Department of Justice National Crime Information Center (NCIC). National crime rates are then compiled from all states by the NCIC, and the consolidated data is eventually released to the public by the FBI.
Not all cities, counties submit data
The accuracy of national crime rates is determined by the accuracy and thoroughness of cities and counties that submit their crime data. The problem is that not all cities and counties submit their crime data as they should, particularly when it is unflattering to local government leaders. When there are whole blocks of data missing, the national statistics become less than reliable.
There are many reasons why a city mayor or county might downplay and/or underreport local crime statistics. The most obvious reason is that they do not want to scare away commerce or tourist dollars. Moreover, many do not want their administration or political party to look bad when crime is up. Therefore, at the end of the day, it becomes a matter of government accountability and integrity. It begs the question: Does a self-reported crime rate provide the public with an accurate assessment of public safety? Probably not.
Crime rates make better talking points than true indicators of public safety. And that provides little comfort for citizens who are trying to make clear judgements of the probability of becoming a crime victim. Horrific sensational crimes like mass shootings, acts of terrorism or bizarre murders are outrageous, but they are anecdotal and not true indicators of overall public safety.
Public safety is mainly a perception of how safe we feel as we go about our daily lives. While reported crime rates play a part in how safe we feel, our feelings of safety and security are influenced more by the trust we have in any level of government to fulfill its most fundamental mission: protecting the people it serves. If we see government making large scale decisions that common sense tells us are detrimental to our long-term public safety, we feel less safe– and we can see where public safety is headed without looking at gaslighted government data.
Sanctuary jurisdictions undermine public safety
When we see “sanctuary” cities like Athens-Clarke County in Georgia welcoming illegal foreign criminals arriving via open borders and benefitting from soft-on-crime policies, it shakes our sense of public safety. It doesn’t take genius to figure out that gang violence, deadly drug epidemics and more violent crime sprees are on our horizon.
If we need more examples to confirm our suspicions, look no further than the dangerous subways of New York City, the intimidated apartment complexes of Aurora Colorado, or the urban wasteland and despair of San Francisco. Look at college campuses like the University of Georgia where student Laken Riley, who probably felt safe on campus, was brutally murdered by an individual affiliated with the extreme Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang in what has become a sanctuary county.
As empirical measures, crime rates are highly flawed and often gaslighted to the American public. However, the big picture of public safety in America shows a steady decline of public safety tied directly to left-wing government policies that need to be changed if we are to have a safer future.
The author, a law enforcement veteran, has served as police chief of both Savannah and Marietta.
