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Can Dallas really trust declining crime statistics?

Falling crime statistics in Dallas are great, editorialized the Morning News ("Crime statistics must be accurate," Dec. 16), but only if the public may have confidence that police aren't cooking the books: Specifically, there's reason to suspect that reporting procedures adopted by the department in 2007 undercount violent crime. And the questions raised are serious enough to warrant an independent external audit or a formal FBI review of Dallas' crime-reporting procedures. In a one-week sample of cases from this summer, The News' review estimated that the number of aggravated assault cases than Dallas police recorded for the FBI should be at least 50 percent higher. Instead, many attacks were classified as lesser offenses because the 2007 policy change generally required that assaults involving bottles, bricks, pipes and other dangerous objects not be classified as aggravated unless serious injury occurred...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on December 17, 2009 (boomark / email).