Recently, at the State of the County address, Burrell Ellis made the statement “We are not safe”, based on crime statistics for 2008, which shows an increase crime, especially violent crime (robberies in particular).
David Simpson of the AJC questioned Ellis’ statement and looked into the crime stats, which he claims shows a decrease in crime for the year. He further states in his article, that Ellis is basing the “We are not safe” statement on crime stats for only the first 8 months of 2008.
Simpson’s article leads you to believe crime was up for 8 months, with a drastic reduction for 4 months, indicating crime was down for the year. What a reduction that was! You would think there was very little crime at all for the last 4 months of the year.
But wait: On January 9, 2009 we published the year end crime analysis report showing crime UP for 2008. (See “Someone once said: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics)
But wait again: Wasn’t it only recently, under Bolton, several people were assigned to the Record Room to “correct” UCR codes?
Are there Terrell Bolton loyalists in the kitchen cooking the numbers? Whatever is cooking sure does stink.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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11 comments:
I understand and agree that the the reporting in the AJC and by Chief Bolton vs. what is actually happening in the county and being reported by the CEO is suspect.
However, those personnel assigned to the Record Room were chosen at random. They had no loyalty to any person, they were POI-MPO's who were assigned to a specific task. They were not asked to cook any numbers, nor were they, even once, ever addressed or acknowledged by the Chief.
They were there to look at problems with the UCR system at all levels (line-level, CID, and Record Room) and try to come up with some practical solutions to issues personnel were having with FBR and RMS and how it relates to what is finally reported to the federal government. They did make suggestions, which may or may not be implemented in the future.
Not everything is a conspiracy. We can agree or disagree with whether or not it was necessary to drag valuable uniform and CID employees in to do such a task. But it wasn't done for the purpose of obfuscation or some kind of Crime Analysis shell game. There was a practical, real purpose.
Are these POLICE OFFICERS still assigned to Record Room ? Why does it take an officer to correct another Record Room mistake.
Both sides are probably right on this one. The problem is how the statistics are compiled. Using the "PATS" system to compile numbers is fatally flawed. It strictly goes off of what signal code an officer puts into it. This causes an inflated number. Thats why you'll see so many different numbers put out by crime analysis. Once the reports are updated into RMS they can be reclassified and then properly categorized. Compare detective's monthlys with the numbers put out by Crime Analysis and you'll see a big difference. This is another area that RMS is broken. Thats why you have people in the record room trying to fix it.
I for one am getting tired of hearing about crime numbers. Too many people focus on just one aspect. Maybe the crime incidents were up but so were our arrests and citations. We are doing more with less. Instead of everyone trying to manipulate the numbers to their benefit I wish we'd just focus on policing. All we do is chase the red dots around the map like morons. Of course then you wouldn't have the dog and pony show called COMPSTAT.
Look damn it I can tell you that theres no dounbt the number are being cooked. I have had the pleasure myself to see this firts hand. Anyone with a little common sense can go to Scan Dekalb and listen to the same calls that are being dispatched to officers. Its simple math just get a pen and paper and listen up for signal 44s 68s and 42s.
The po sheets are manipulated every day Robberies are made to become mere thefts to lower the stats.
Burglaries made to become mere Criminal Trespass to lower the stats.
You name it is done crime is out of control in Dekalb, I remember when I first started here It was a miracle if I worked 1-2 Robberies a month, now thats in a single shift somtimes 3-4 per watch.
The books are on fire around this place, somone anyone tell me what checks and balances are in place to prevent this from happening, anyone???? I didnt think so.
The only way to stop it, is to start spanking people asses who cant control themselves in society.
You can only ask nicely so many times, at sompoint you have to step up to the plate and handle your business. You can either give the ass woopin or take it!
And the AJC wonders why they can't sell newspapers. How is it that crime was up up until the end of the summer? Did Bolton all of a sudden want to get serious about policing Dekalb as he knew had a new boss coming. Remember, August was when Burrell was elected in the Democratic run-off and of course, he had no Republican to face in November.
It seems to me that the AJC Dekalb Reporters are not interested in nothing but continuing their fairy tale of Burrell wanting Bolton gone because of personal poltics not job performance.
The AJC is goin' down the tubes, in a couple of years the Champion will probably overtake the AJC in the DeKalb market. The metro media has been lax in reporting DeKalb government issues, its only when a reporter actually lives in the county do we seem to see effective reporting. From what I have seen very few metro area reporters live in DeKalb, much less report. Whatever happened to real-live reporters? Do they spend all their time surfing the net and reporting only global events?
The officers are no longer assigned to the Record Room. And it wasn't exclusively the Record Room personnel making errors. It was officers, supervisors, CID, and Record Room. People are doing the best they can to make a flawed system do things it was never intended to do, it's not necessarily anyone's "fault." But it does take officers to understand the perspective of officers.
I have also seen what happened first hand. The numbers reported to the federal government are based on federal definitions, not state code. And in the audit there were as many, if not more, CT turned to burglary and battery turned to Aggravated Assault as the opposite. The only emphasis was on truthfulness and accuracy.
I believe violent crime has increased and that the former chief was misrepresenting the numbers. But it does no good to wave the conspiracy flag where none exists. You risk turning this into the blog that cried wolf.
DeKalb County had TWICE as many murders in 2008 as Gwinnett County and Cobb County COMBINED! Now this is not my opinion brothers and sisters, this is a damn fact! Burglaries, Auto Thefts and Robberies were all up AND there are far too many thugs selling drugs all over DeKalb County.
Now along comes CEO Burrell Ellis and says the crime in DeKalb County is unacceptable. He further says he wants to do something about it. Maybe CEO Ellis recognizes that black folks and white folks alike are tired of the crime in this county and expect him to make DeKalb a better place to live. It is never going to be crime free but it can be better!
I am inclined to stand up and cheer for the new CEO but it appears that David Simpson insists on writing incredibly misleading, unfair and inaccurate articles about Burrell Ellis. I don’t care what numbers you are using, only a moron would believe that the current level of crime in DeKalb County is acceptable. I know it is asking a lot Mr. Simpson, but could you get off of your lazy ass and actually investigate something before you write your next ridiculous article?
I have worked UCR and Agent99 appears to have done the same. You cannot make a burglary a criminal trespass on the UCR because there is not category for criminal trespass. There is a strong argument for UCR being flawed. For example, you must count "alleged" crimes and then clear them as unfounded. Many citizens do not fully appreciate the difference between being robbed and burglarized. How many times have you heard them say, "I've been robbed, I came home from work and the back window was broken in?" This is a reported robbery, however it is counted as a larceny.
For Slamin Ethel, I do not know how Dekalb Police categorizes its crimes/calls so I am not saying you are wrong. I enjoy your posts and have never seen you speak nonsense. I just think UCR is not an accurate measure of crime and the whole system should be tossed and re-done. I'm sure anyone who has had the misfortune of doing UCR would agree. Victimization reports are much more accurate and they don't even involve the Police.
I am not saying UCR cannot be manipulated however, I've seen that done as well (as I've said before, ask John's Creek). I don't know the answer but I do see some problems.
I think this is more indicative of the lack of trust TeBo has caused throughout the Department. His poison has polluted the whole trust of the Department and this is not a reflection of the Department, rather the man himself. Hang in there, once you’ve hit the bottom (TeBo) there’s only one way to go…Up!
At the last county meeting, Larry Johnson had a map of the county displayed on the big screen with homocides in DeKalb broken down by district. He stated that the numbers were going up, some worse than others. It was his effort to get more police on the streets (by not supporting the Public Safety Director in the proposed budget). So it isn't just our new CEO who thinks crime in DeKalb is a problem. Check with the Commissioners. But you'll never read that in the AJC.
I work as a detective and read reports every day that are fatally flawed. The wrong UCR code, the wrong state code, poor grammar and missing information are common. All officers on FTO are required to spend a day of their FTO time in CID and I quiz them on the elements of various crimes. Most don't know what constitutes a burglary. It's no wonder there are huge discrepancies between what Records says, what Crime Analysis says, what PATS says and what CID says. That's one of the reasons that UCR training is now a part of inservice. It's a Records responsibility, but it's been put upon the officers to input the UCR codes.
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