Manipulating Data by Police Agencies

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List it. Everything you know they do to hide the truth at any level of LE. The people have a right to know whats being done and who is instructing it to be done.
I know I would like to be able to apply this information to my Local LE and know whats really going on in what areas.

[TGS]

You're right, the people do have a right to know. This should be covered by the news, god damnit!

Here's a list (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=police+data+manipulation)

It's super secret.

[blues]

Such cynicism. I'm shocked, appalled and somewhat taken aback. Did I mention shocked? :p

[lwt16]

You will sleep better not knowing.

But if you must, I am sure that wherever you live will allow you to peruse the incident/offense reports.....at least the front of them. Here, it's public record (the front only) and will protect the innocent (?) and allow you to see what was wrote up in your area. This will be fresh stuff before it gets reclassified or dropped.

Then just add a percentage to that of crimes that go unreported.

Where I'm from, you are more apt to get killed driving to work than being the victim of a heinous crime.....that is if you mind your own business and don't engage in risky business.......like dope, hookers, etc. Don't leave stuff in your car, don't leave it running at gas stations........common sense stuff.

You will also have to knock off a percentage of those reports you read where the victim is too lazy to go sign a warrant (misdemeanor stuff) to get a solid count of actual crime. You will be quite shocked to see on how little follow up there is once people tell us their "tale of woe". Cutting the report and getting a case number is usually enough to get their feelings healed.

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You will sleep better not knowing.
I bet you are right.
I watch the crime maps for my city and up till now I thought they were accurate. Now I am starting to understand they most likely under report the actual crime for any given area.

[Gray222]

Off the top of head...

Multiple people shot from one shooting counts as one shooting incident, unless it's like a mas shooting shooting, but four or five...That's just reported as one.

Use to make all gunshot calls where there is no victim or witness just shell casing or shot up property a vandalism, now it's got it's own classification.

If a person is hurt and goes to the hospital with a serious injury but doesn't die that day, but does later they never change the crime classification in the reporting system, they just charge the person with homicide, but the two systems don't audit each other.

We use police report numbers to see how busy our areas of service are compared to others. Only issue is they don't remove sets of numbers for non crimes, like checks of businesses, area checks, etc. So some commanders go out of their way to bump the sets of police numbers generated because they know they get more funding and manpower if theirs are higher than other, especially from last year.

The top brass removed retail theft from the part 1 crimes list. Even though it is still a part 1 crime.

Vastly under report the assault of police officers, vast majority is reported to be simple assault, but we all know it's aggrevated assault.

The commander's of areas sometimes look at crime patterns for an area and see if there were numerous crimes committed in one area at one time. Like a dozen theft from autos over night in a ten block area or a few burglaries. They will report those as one occurance.

As I think of more I'll post.

[Dagga Boy]

Oh let's see.....off the top of my head....

Things like what are traditionally burglary being stat'd as "petty theft" or grand theft based on value totally ignoring the forced entry component. Domestic violence as simple battery. Rape as sexual misconduct. Attempted murder as "assault". Burglary attempts as vandalism. If agencies are real desperate they will change stats based on the court case dispositions which are often a plea bargain that is not remotely related to what happened and make a ton of the stuff go away. If you really want to be disgusted and appalled, compare charged and booked crimes to what happens at the plea bargain side of the "conviction".

A big thing in California with three strikes was taking parolees who committed new crimes to have those totally dropped from the criminal justice system and then just dump them back into the corrections system with a "parole violation"......so a felon on parole commits a burglary, with a car chase, and a crash with injuries gets a "bullet" (one year) as a parole violation instead of the of the actual crimes that they should be doing decades for.

Crimes where people suffer lifetime crippling injuries like loss of limbs, sight, paralysis, and severe brain injuries are deemed "assaults" with little consequence to the criminal.

This is simple. We have a legal system....period. "Justice" occurs on the street, and what is now being called "justice" is code for not making criminals responsible for the action and some shared societal issue. That blindfold on the symbol for Justice is hiding her tears.

[Poconnor]

You have to read each report to really know
A drive by shooting were they don't hit anyone but hit a window becomes a criminal mischief.

Thirty thefts from vehicles in an apartment complex count as one

12 burglaries on the same street, same day are one

20 Honda civics stolen in one night count as one

The rape of a prostitute is a theft of services- that one is a joke but it was suggested

If you want inflated stats- look at the school resource officer. Every fight is dis con. Kids yelling profanity in the hallway is discon. Cigarettes on school property. A small Swiss army pocket knife is a weapon. Schools just go zero tolerance/ stupid unless they are athletes or drug dealers. Jocks get a pass to play ball. Drug dealers get minimized because we can't admit there are drugs in school.

Agg assault against a police officer- only if you have serious injuries

Look at plea bargains vs arrests. I actually had a criminal justice professor seriously tell me that she had interviewed all the prisoners at our county jail and 97 percent told her they did not commit the crime they were convicted of. She totally missed that 97 percent is the same percentage as our. counties plea bargains.

[Gray222]

Oh let's see.....off the top of my head....

Things like what are traditionally burglary being stat'd as "petty theft" or grand theft based on value totally ignoring the forced entry component. Domestic violence as simple battery. Rape as sexual misconduct. Attempted murder as "assault". Burglary attempts as vandalism. If agencies are real desperate they will change stats based on the court case dispositions which are often a plea bargain that is not remotely related to what happened and make a ton of the stuff go away. If you really want to be disgusted and appalled, compare charged and booked crimes to what happens at the plea bargain side of the "conviction".

A big thing in California with three strikes was taking parolees who committed new crimes to have those totally dropped from the criminal justice system and then just dump them back into the corrections system with a "parole violation"......so a felon on parole commits a burglary, with a car chase, and a crash with injuries gets a "bullet" (one year) as a parole violation instead of the of the actual crimes that they should be doing decades for.

Crimes where people suffer lifetime crippling injuries like loss of limbs, sight, paralysis, and severe brain injuries are deemed "assaults" with little consequence to the criminal.

This is simple. We have a legal system....period. "Justice" occurs on the street, and what is now being called "justice" is code for not making criminals responsible for the action and some shared societal issue. That blindfold on the symbol for Justice is hiding her tears.

Yeah the downgrading of crimes based on value.

Also the severity of violent crimes where the criminal had no intention of causing such injury....

[XXXsilverXXX]

What about stuff not being put into NCIC or any database. Though that maybe local jail issues rather then police. I saw a few records get "archived" that are violent offenders. People who committed crimes and received jail time for serious crimes, were still able to purchase firearms, or pretty much had a clean record (not even a speeding ticket). Also calls missing from local 911 call center that were "archived"....

[UNK]

Thanks for the helpful insights. This is going to require some effort. I can only assume at this point that the city council/mayor and local reporting must be complicit for this to work.

Looking online just now I can see a daily crime log at universities police departments but can find nothing for the local
pd. Of course everyone is on vacation today so I have to call back tomorrow.

[Gadfly]

You have a guy break into a house to steal jewelry, wife comes home early, burglar rapes her, then panics and stabs her. Then, takes her keys and flees in her car. So that's a Burglary, theft, agg sexual assault, agg assault with deadly weapon, and a theft of motor vehicle.

So, that's 6 crimes.

Do you need funding? Do you need more manpower? If so, you can report all six crimes. Then you can go on TV and say "we need more budget and more men". OR, is it an election year? Go to show our policies are working? Then, it's just the burglary or just the agg assault. Only one crime reported. Then you go on TV and say "look, our great strategy to combat crime is working."

I work immigration. You want to talk numbers juggling? Years back, the border patrol started the "visible deterrence" strategy, which the agents call "sitting on the X"... Management draws an X on the map, you go park your truck there, and by being visible, you are a deterrent to border crossing. BUT, if you leave your X, you're not deterring. So, if you and your parter are sitting on the river a half mile apart, and between you, you see 20 aliens run past, you can't give chase. No arrests. At the end of the month, you see TV reports of "BP arrests down 40%, our visual deterrence works"... No, it doesn't, we just stopped chasing.

And that is just scratching the surface.

I will spare you the immigration PEP. (Presidential Enforcement Priorities). Things like, the immigration judge ordered you deported, you skip bail. But the deportation order lives forever. BUT, according to the PEP, and orders issued before 2014 will simply be ignored. Thus erasing deportation orders for hundreds of thousands of aliens... I could go in for pages.


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[KeeFus]

Agencies have been manipulating UCR numbers forever. I've seen Drive-bys, which in NC its a Class E felony for vehicles and a Class D felony for homes, reclassified to damage to property...which is essentially a call for service.

Recently a local agency promoted from within. Within a couple months crime dropped... If yall believe that Ive got some oceanfront property in AZ for sale.

[Dagga Boy]

Thanks for the helpful insights. This is going to require some effort. I can only assume at this point that the city council/mayor and local reporting must be complicit for this to work.

Looking online just now I can see a daily crime log at universities police departments but can find nothing for the local
pd. Of course everyone is on vacation today so I have to call back tomorrow.

Forget complicit, they are driving it. My place had a "special" officer assigned to just altering stats. The patrol folks are usually pretty good about documenting serious crimes. This stuff is being altered later.

Also.....call response. Places are having their specialized units "taking calls" to stop the clock, but never really going and they wait till a patrol unit is available. It doesn't look good that it takes 20-30 minutes to find someone to take an in progress high priority violent felony.

[blues]

Prior to 9-11 I was in the "Exodus" Group which was involved in arms smuggling and liaised with FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force.

However, on the day, I was working off penance having been assigned back to a narcotics group for yet again pissing off the brass for one thing or another.

So, the day of, I'm alerted that I'm being called back to "Exodus" and I start getting together with staff to figure out a viable plan to help safeguard the Port of Miami and airport since they could easily be targets. (All of you who live in coastal areas know what a threat incoming containers can be.)

Anyway, the brass belays this attempt to set up contingency plans and states that there is an audit of the evidence room forthcoming from HQ in a few days and that everyone has to make sure their logged evidence and paperwork are in order. Forthwith.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The evidence room, which can be secured for any number of days, is going to take precedence over ensuring the safety of our area of operation when we may be under attack.

Messing with statistics? Child's play. Nothing surprises me anymore. Too often the empty suits running the show are seemingly the biggest liability that those who still do the job have to contend with.

[iWander]

A better question is how prosecutors/D.A.s are manipulating charges via plea bargains to insure their conviction rates, and jury instructions (esp grand juries) to decrease crime rates, remand clear cut felonies to misdemeanors or ignore them completely.