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: Grits for Breakfast

New Texas crime data available, but what do they capture?

Both violent and property crimes are declining nationwide, reports the Justice Department, though in Texas' city by city numbers (below) one finds a more mixed result.I never quite know what to make of raw, aggregate reported crime stats. One's gut instinct is to tally them up to determine whether crime is "increasing" or "decreasing," but there are so many variables to consider when deciding if that's accurate. Did Dallas' crime stats decline because there is less crime, for example, because the new DA is doing a better job, or because police supervisors are under political pressure to report less crime? Such answers lie outside the confines of this report.For that matter, how many offenses go unreported to the police? Do police comprehensively upload complaint data to the feds? (In Texas, often not...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).