CREATIVE MANIPULATION OF CRIME STATISTICS

In NY assault becomes harassment, robbery becomes grand theft, grand theft becomes petty theft, burglary becomes criminal trespass; in Houston murder becomes suicide

The authors of “The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation” (CRC Press), Professors John Eterno of Molloy College and Eli Silverman of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, have long maintained that the rosy crime statistics presented and bragged about by NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg were manipulated to make the department and the city look good.

On June 14, Eterno and Silverman released the findings of an extensive survey of NYPD retirees that ‘strongly substantiated’ their previous charges that NYPD’s brass pressured the rank and file to report serious crimes as less serious offenses.

It is my strong belief that the manipulation of crime statistics is widespread throughout the U.S., rather than just in New York. For instance, in Houston, several obvious murders were reported as suicides even though the victims were shot multiple times. It is downright outrageous when, for political and propaganda purposes, NYPD and other law enforcement agencies manipulate those statistics.

Here are a few examples of open-ended responses to the survey that illustrate the crime numbers game:

(1) “As a [supervisor] and an attorney with 30 years experience I was ordered not to review complaints because I often raised the charges and refused to lower crime classifications. False reporting is endemic in the police department.”

(2) “Assault becomes harassment, robbery becomes grand larceny, grand larceny becomes petit larceny, burglary becomes criminal trespass. All with editing/creative writing on complaint reports by supervisors after submission.”

(3) “The heightened emphasis by COs on "crime reduction" (or under-reporting) occurred mainly due to the implementation of COMPSTAT meetings, whereby Pct COs were belittled, humiliated, ambushed and confronted with crime patterns of which they were unaware, and embarrassed in front of (and by) the brass ... After one beating, you'd have to be a consummate idiot to report higher crime stats the next time.”

(4) “Pressure to lower crime stats came from 1 PP. Dramatic lows were unattainable year to year yet Commanding Officers had to withstand "public flogging" and embarrassment at Compstat meetings. Those meetings were the driving force to keep numbers low…”

(5) “Years ago, the 61's were done by the police officer on the street and turned into the 124 room for entry into the system, they were only looked at for errors and omissions. Now before they are turned in they are looked at to see how the crime can be downgraded, and as such sometimes the report that is entered into the system is not what the street Officer had written and it is changed without knowledge or consent of the officer. Many times the 61 was totally re-written and the officers name and signature were photocopied on to a new report and a copy of the whole report was filed and the original was never to be seen again. the statistics game has changed the way we do policing but not for the good, and the average person that wants to make a legitimate complaint is totally discouraged and a report will be taken to placate them only till they leave and another report will done downgrading the original report to a lesser crime thus making it seem like things are better, when in reality it is just the opposite.”

(6) “Heard Deputy Commissioner XXXXX say in a pre Compstat meeting that a CO should just consolidate burglaries that occurred in an apartment building and count as one. Also not to count leap year stats. Make reporting a crime difficult to discourage the victims from following through such as asking for receipts and making the person appear in person at the SH [station house]. Discouraging Schools from reporting thefts or if they did consolidate thefts into one felony report or separate into multiple misd [misdemeanor] reports. Shred reports for those with no insurance etc. Inventory shrinkage from retail stores would be classified at the wholesale value of item rather than retail value to downgrade to misd [misdemeanor]. Reckless Endangerment used instead of attempted assault especially in shoot and miss situations.”