Six (6) officers have been pulled from the precincts and reassigned to the Records Room. Their assignment is to review over 6000 reports and reclassify them as needed.
Just a couple of questions: Why reassign sworn personnel? Why not civilian personnel? How long will it take them to train? How long will they be reassigned? Why do these reports need to be reclassified? Or is this the makings of a shell game involving 2008 crime numbers?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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Sounds like a shell game to me. I've worked UCR and the like for a while, it is so easy to manipulate these stats for whatever direction you want to take them. Looks like TeBo is starting to worry. He will most likely try to show a change for the better as a result of his tenure. He better trust the people he picks to re-classify...it just takes one to blow the whole thing...TeBo, are you listening?
Well DeKalb and Clayton have the highest crime stats for the metro area. Do we call this changing the real crime stats. We take officers off the street and train them to do computer work. Is this because our civilian employees cannot perform what is required of them?
Trust me when I say that this is gonna benefit everyone in the police department. This mass reclassification should have been done a long time ago. They are going to fix some very misleading numbers that are being reported.
Two detectives were also assigned to this detail. Everyone assigned was already on a light-duty assignment, so it's not like they're pulling personnel from the street.
As for the assignment itself, the officers will be conducting an internal audit to make certain that the county is accurately reporting UCR codes to the state. In addition to that, they are allowing officers and detectives an opportunity to review the system and some of the problems therein, with an eye toward developing better training.
Not everything in the department is some great conspiracy. Yes, our technology is frustrating and often inadequate, but it is the system that we have and this is an opportunity to improve the way it works.
The reason for the reassignments are to fix a real problem. The problem exists because they (records room) want officers to title the reports with the UCR codes instead of using the actual state offense code like we did in the past. Records personell used to look at the offense code and narrative and report the proper UCR code. Officers are not trained in UCR codes and have no business titling reports this way. An example of an error would be when an officer titles a report with the UCR code for Armed Robbery Residence (or whatever the other 12 UCR codes for Robbery are) when the narrative of the report says it was an armed robbery to a pedestrian. Even though it was still an Armed Robbery, the UCR codes are different. The records room tried to pawn a job off on uniform by having them title the reports by UCR codes and it bit them in the ass, now they have to fix the problem. DeKalb is the only county where you can pick up your report for whatever it is and the state code section is not the title. Instead you see confusing BS that only matters to the feds.
Inexperienced line officers conducting an internal audit? An eye towards better training? PLEASE! Just like the Transition Team reported; the system is broken. It needs to be scrapped. Like the other posted stated, we are the only department in the state and probably the world doing it this way.
Everyone knows that the problem with the system is the system. It's no great mystery. But given the county budget crisis, regardless of its origin, I'd rather see them spending money on things that represent issues of officer safety (a working CAD system, radios, tasers, vests) than on something that is merely a nuisance. The cost to scrap the entire system is prohibitive at this time.
Therefore there are two things you can do -- bitch, or make the best of it. Actually involving and letting officers have input on a real problem? What a novel idea. Then allowing those same officers to speak to how training is accomplished so that we can do the best with what we have?
As for the "shell game." It has nothing to do with manipulating stats. It has to do with assigning the correct state code to each crime so that if we actually get audited with keep our accreditation. It's not about hiding anything.
You (the people posting) are the future of this county. Do you want to whine or do you want to help?
[The above post regarding detective assignement, internal audit, and "an eye toward training" was also mine, I just forgot to sign it with my usual moniker.]
Lies, Lies, Lies and damn lies....then there's statistics.
I think that's how the book starts.....
Anonymous said... "Everyone assigned was already on a light-duty assignment."
Is that supposed to make me feel warm and fuzzy because they're not on full duty?
They could be doing something that WOULD free up an officer or detective.......
They could......
1) take reports over the phone so a unit doesn't have to be dispatched.(how many screening officers are on duty for the entire shift during evening and morning watch?)
2) close out old cases so detectives can focus their time on active cases.
3) Assist an FTO with training a rookie who is on their screening portion of the FTO training period.
There are a number of things a light duty officer could do that would free up a healthy line officer or detective.
Just another waste of valuable resources.
TeBo is cooking the books so that he can protect himself. Something about being "fired for cause" comes to mind. Atlanta did this some years ago (for those of us who have some time in and can remember that far back). They got found out too. Example: he wouldn't surprise me if he changes Armed Robbery into Theft and Pointing a Pistol at Another...
Dora Tabb needs to be shown the exit door along with TeBo.
Slamin Ethel wants to know can we just go back to handwriting reports, along with po sheets.
Maybe we can then get a cost of living raise instead of spending it on a system that only puts more money back into the rear pockets of ole VJ.
Every contract awarded around here there is someone getting rich, and its not us. When was the last time we had a cost of living raise, or hell a descent raise for that matter 3 or 4%, come on our pension and insurance gets that every year.
Behind every handshake there is an underlying agenda with the knucklheads running this place.
What I do know is that yes po sheets are manipulated everyday around here, we take Robberies and turn them into Thefts.
We take Burglaries and turn them into Criminal Trespass, along with Entering Autos.
Anything entered onto the system is at the mercy of the individual officer or the supervisor that tells the officer what to enter it as. That helps reduce the number of part one crimes to ease the burden on the poor Lieutenent who is getting his tail reemed at the compost meetings because he cant reduce crime in dekalb.
I can recall when I first came to work here on average we put 20-25 a day per shift on the street. And crime wasnt an issue, we had time to police.
I hear tale that at some precincts such as North they only run 7 officers per shift on a good day, no wonder Dunwoody incorporated. It was common knowledge that is why North never received any recruits from the academy classes.
Hey whats next Sergeants having to upload officers reports because some are to incompitent to even do that. OOhh wait that general order went out last week haaaaa, less work for me I guess.
Our police Record Room has always had issues for the last dozen or so years. I can remember when they were so far behind in filing reports, that a uniform chief had to meet with the department head every week to see what progress has been made.
They still have the same department head today.
Given that between one third and one half of all reports are mistitled, and that over 170,000 reports get written every year, of course our numbers are off. The UCR report is generated by doing a program run on the codes in the report. Records and crime analysis always show lower crime stats than CID because they use the program function. GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. CID reads the narrative and not the UCR code so CID reports higher crime stats than crime analysis or records.
UCR is not "universal". Anyone who has done the report knows the "feds'" (the ones who came up with the forms) definitions of crimes are not the same as the state of Georgia. And, to accuratly report UCR you have to read the report and sometimes the narrative. Even unfounded reports of crimes are recorded (as in family violence and most other crimes for that matter). I do UCR every month and if you say they are not used as a tool to "fool" the public all over the state (ask Johns Creek), then you're fooling yourself.
I'm just wondering this...isn't there more pressing issues and better ways of spending money than that right now? I don't work at your agency but from what I've been reading TeBo is blowing out candles at a forest fire with this.
We are the Detroit Lions of policework...and Mr. T is the coach !
While some may write it off as a conspiracy theory, it makes you wonder after what APD is going through along with Fulton County PD as they are losing officers left and right with a shrinking base to serve. Chiefs are under pressure to make it look like they have everything under control. However, I think a bigger issue the public needs to ask is how fast is the court system moving with prosecutions of legitimate cases (not cases of people who DA's, police chiefs, sheriffs, politicians don't like). I was always taught that arrests don't mean nothing, its the conviction. And given how liberal Dekalb, Fulton and Clayton are, you have to ask that question. As long as the Sheriff and Courts, keep re-releasing people who you bring in and of course, they re-offend, this is why you have an elevated crime problem.
This place is full of magic..magic buses, now magic numbers.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2009/01/16/dekalb_crime_drop.html
I saw one of those magic buses once, and it was the darndest thing, some fool got his limo stolen right across the street from one of those magic buses (North Precinct, parked at NE Plaza, limo stolen from AutoZone, in plain view). I wonder what that wound up in the books as....
Lost property. No slot on UCR for that.
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