It's time for JOM research team to blow the lid off of these ridiculous FBI UCR statistics.
I funded a small study in 1993 on UCR reporting by the individual states and how that data was compiled by the FBI. The findings, which are safely stored on some floppy disc somewhere I can't now find, showed that the figures are worthless on a comparative basis due to wide variations on how the incidents were reported from the individual states.
Violent crime statistics are a combination of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Per 100,000 residents, the murder, rape and robbery numbers are relatively stable and low. Aggravated assault is the big factor that essentially drives the violent crime rate.
Although my study looked at all states where the information was available in '93, it focused on practices in Connecticut and Michigan as examples. After a quick look over the weekend (prompted by an appearance by James Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University on CSPAN) I found the current numbers just as flawed as they were 17 years ago.
Anomalies in the way different states report their crimes leads to wildly differing crime rates. The most egregious of these is the use of a "Family Violence" section by select states.
Take for example a hypothetical assault in Michigan. Let's say a man comes home from a softball game and finds his dinner is not ready. He takes his bat and uses it to remind his wife of her household duties by knocking her in the head a few times. In Michigan, that is an aggravated assault and is recorded as such on the Michigan UCR along with being reported to the FBI for compilation in their yearly summary.
Using the same scenario, in Connecticut the crime would be reported in the "Family Violence" subsection of their state UCR report, but not included in their aggravated assault numbers reported to the FBI.
The difference shows Connecticut as a low-crime state and Michigan as a high-crime state. The resulting fallout is a two-edge sword of lower desirability for living in Michigan but a better case for increased federal funding for crime programs.
To add insult to injury, Michigan also includes prisoner-on-prisoner crime statistics in their report as if the assaults had taken place on a city street.
I've spoken with the assistant director of the FBI in charge of the UCR program at the time and the chairman of the commission comprised of police chiefs and FBI personnel who oversaw the UCR process, but no one was interested in finding out about problems in the system.
These bogus numbers influence the flow of millions of taxpayer dollars. It's time to bring some accuracy to them.
Posted by: jwest | June 01, 2010 at 11:21 AM <http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2010/06/richard-cohen-bumps-into-reality.html?cid=6a00d83451b2aa69e20133ef6068a5970b#comment-6a00d83451b2aa69e20133ef6068a5970b>
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