Cooking the Books
How many times have we had leftwing members quote crime statistics recently to show, to the disbelief of many, that crime is actually going down?
We hear it constantly on leftist cable news shows. The problem is we see these horrendous films coming from blue cities which have gone soft on crime and have emasculated their police departments. Soros funded DAs refuse to prosecute criminals and people in the inner city are living in fear, yet we keep hearing of these "statistics."
Well, it turns out that the Washington Examiner wasn't really buying it either and they did a little digging. You'll never guess what they found. It seems our heavily politicized FBI only gets crime statistics from about half of the local police departments. And the FBI estimates the rest, and they estimate low.
The facts:
"The fourth quarter 2023 crime report from the FBI, the federal government’s keeper of crime data, is unreliable at best and deceptive at worst.
The FBI’s preliminary 2023 data show murder declined by 13.2% across the country and violent crime dropped 5.7% compared to 2022 levels. Various news headlines have reported the FBI’s numbers unquestioningly, claiming murder is “plummeting” and violent crime “declined significantly” to pre-pandemic levels.
But these latest figures warrant skepticism, as we outline in a new report. In fact, violent crime is up substantially from 2019 levels, and last year’s apparent drop is less significant than it appears.
Part of the problem is how police departments report offenses to the FBI. The FBI asked, then demanded, that law enforcement agencies “transition” away from the system they used for decades to a new, more detailed but onerous one. The 2021 mandate to use NIBRS to submit crime data proved a disaster as overstretched departments, especially in large cities, failed to reach compliance and thus did not submit data.
In 2019, 89% of agencies covering 97% of the population submitted data, but by 2021, that coverage plummeted to less than 63% of departments overseeing just 65% of the population. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City all failed to submit crime data . To increase participation, the FBI relaxed the NIBRS requirement in 2022, allowing agencies to report via the legacy system.
But many other cities, such as St. Louis , which had transitioned to the new method, still struggle to comply and submit partial or faulty data. The FBI compensates by relying more heavily on “estimation,” or informed guesswork, to fill in the gaps and produce aggregated data.
That method of inferring offense totals is based on similar jurisdictions and past trends but is prone to error since it cannot compensate for local factors or events. For example, comparing Baltimore’s 2015 homicide total to similar cities’ trends would produce a skewed result. Baltimore, beset by riots and a police stand-down, saw murder rise 62% that year. In peer cities, murders rose in Cleveland only 15% and fell in Detroit by 1% and Memphis by 4%.
And the figures the agencies do report to the FBI do not match the agencies’ publicly reported figures. For Baltimore, the FBI reported 225 murders in 2023, but the city reported 262 — which means the FBI left out 37 murders. In Milwaukee , the police department reported a 7% increase in robberies, but the FBI showed a 13% drop. Nashville’s own data tallied more than 6,900 aggravated assaults in 2023, but the FBI counted only 5,941, leaving almost 1,000 of those offenses “missing.” This trend is consistent across the board: While 2022’s FBI city-level figures track the police’s own data, the 2023 numbers consistently undercount offense totals. Any year-to-year comparison overstates decline.
Other measures of crime levels undermine, or at least muddle, the veracity of the FBI’s data, which rely on “reported” offenses by victims and law enforcement themselves. The federal government’s own victims’ survey , which attempts to capture the gap between the number of actual offenses and the number reported to police, shows much higher offense rates than the FBI does. Moreover, a rising share of victims are failing to report their victimizations at all. In 2022, only 42% of violent crime victims and 33% of property crime victims bothered to report the crime to police.
That underreporting reduces the reliability of FBI numbers in measuring actual offense levels. For example, robbery offenses, which constitute roughly 25% of all violent crime by volume compared to 5% for murder, declined 18% between 2019 and 2022, according to the FBI, while the victim’s survey suggests a 30% rise.
Another complicating factor is underreporting by the police themselves, who might be under pressure to “downcharge” offenses or dissuade the victims from reporting the crime at all. While the prevalence of underreporting by the police is hard to quantify, an investigation found that between 2005 and 2012, the Los Angeles Police Department erased thousands of crimes, mostly violent assaults, by reclassifying them as lesser offenses or not capturing them at all. The fuzzy math artificially reduced the city’s crime rate by 7%. Any such malfeasance, when officials are under immense pressure to show progress in fighting crime, would inject bad data into the FBI’s estimation model, only compounding its errors.
Our analysis of 40 jurisdictions that both reported data to the FBI and the Major Cities Chiefs Association , which collects data from the largest police departments, shows that homicide declined 10.2% across 40 major cities in 2023 since 2022, but the FBI reported a 12.8% decline in those same jurisdictions. Similarly, the FBI reported a 6.6% decline in violent crime since 2022, but the same cities reported only a 4.5% drop, with the FBI counting 3,200 more violent crimes in 2022 than the MCCA and 2,600 fewer in 2023 — a net discrepancy of almost 5,900 offenses. That gap conveniently results in a more significant drop in crime levels year to year.
In reality, violent crime is up substantially from 2019 levels. In big cities, murder is still elevated — up 23% since 2019 across all 70 cities tracked by the MCCA and up 18% according to a 32-city analysis by the nonprofit organization Council on Criminal Justice . For aggravated assaults, CCJ’s 25-city sample found those up 8%, while the MCCA larger sample of cities reported a 26% increase over the same period.
To say crime is down is like descending from a tall peak and standing on a high bluff and saying you are closer to the ground — a true but misleading statement. Worse, the FBI’s crime data serve as a poor altimeter to judge how high (or low) crime actually is."
Mark Morgan is the former assistant FBI director and acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and now serves as the president of the Coalition for Law Order and Safety. Sean Kennedy is the executive director of CLOS.
Bad data from the FBI mislead about crime - Washington Examiner
Our special thanks to Mark Morgan, Sean Kennedy and the Washington Examiner
In other news:
Biden attempts once again to offer student debt relief in defiance of the SCOTUS and the Constitution.
The Pope condemned gender theory yesterday. He said it violated human dignity.
A desperate Zelensky warns that Ukraine will lose the war if the US does not send more aid.
Netanyahu says there is a date for Rafah invasion as Hamas says they are unable to produce 40 hostages.
PBS produces a new documentary on William F Buckley called “The Incomparable Mr. Buckley.”
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Good morning.
How many found watching the eclipse underwhelming?
In my area school administrators gave the kids those special sunglasses and took them out to watch, but they saw nothing.
My wife and I found it very interesting (as did our neighbors who like us were sitting in their front yards in lawn chairs) and I took a few good pictures to preserve the moment.
Anyone who saw nothing was either totally blocked by cloud cover or simply had no idea to where to look or what to look for
The police not reporting the crimes in their area, this is new? There have been numerous stories done on it, in fact our governor DeSantis brags all the time about the low crime rate in Florida, not bothering to mention that only half the departments follow the protocol.
Nonsense, drop this it should only apply if there was fraud/crime by the university or if private then went bankrupt, the rest can pay the student loans.
I wonder if pedophilia and the covering up of the crime is, in addition, a violation of human dignity in his mind.
It probably will since Ukraine is now fighting with minimum ammo perhaps the learned experts will realize that when Russia marches into a NATO country and it's Americans with boots on the ground.
Israel invades Rafah, more Palestinians and Jews are killed and nothing is settled.
PBS does very well on their documentaries and hopefully, this will be in line with their best.
To a certain degree it is different.
Nonsense, drop this it should only apply if there was fraud/crime by the university or if private then went bankrupt, the rest can pay the student loans.
Read it again. It involves those who have been paying off student loans for over 20 years.
I wonder if pedophilia and the covering up of the crime is, in addition, a violation of human dignity in his mind.
I'm sure it is. How soon before the left proclaims pedophilia as an alternate lifestyle.
It probably will since Ukraine is now fighting with minimum ammo perhaps the learned experts will realize that when Russia marches into a NATO country and it's Americans with boots on the ground.
Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO until after the war is over. Perhaps if the US backed Ukraine back when Ukraine originally applied, there never would have been a war, but at the time the US claimed that there was too much corruption in Ukraine's government.
Israel invades Rafah, more Palestinians and Jews are killed and nothing is settled.
If Israel does not enter Rafah, Hamas lives on and Israel will come under many more attacks.
PBS does very well on their documentaries and hopefully, this will be in line with their best.
That is debatable and this particular one comes under considerable criticism for not providing a background for the rise of Buckley.
They should still have to pay off their loans. I paid on a house for 20 years does that mean that the final 10 years of payments should be forgiven?
I doubt that will happen since they would be second to do it after the RCC.
As I stated after Russia defeats Ukraine they will march into a NATO country, nothing was mentioned about Ukraine being a NATO country.
If they do enter Rafah and the killing continues, Israel will have created more terrorists that will be attacking them for years to come.
There will always be critics, the ones I've seen have been quite good. As for Buckley we'll have to see how they handle it before making a comment on it.
I guess we finally agree on something.
I doubt that will happen
Ahh, you missed professor Allyn Walker:
Professor’s redefinition of pedophilia could help offenders demand rights (nypost.com)
As I stated after Russia defeats Ukraine they will march into a NATO country, nothing was mentioned about Ukraine being a NATO country.
You do know that there is now a push to get Ukraine into NATO, but they cannot do it while Ukraine is at war. As to your idea that Putin would gamble on NATO's resolve, I really doubt that. I think both sides seek to avoid WWIII. Unlike Biden, NATO still offers deterrence.
If they do enter Rafah and the killing continues, Israel will have created more terrorists that will be attacking them for years to come.
Nobody can stop the hate being taught to Palestinian children without an occupation of Gaza. That seems to be beyond the IDF's overly stacked table.
There will always be critics, the ones I've seen have been quite good. As for Buckley we'll have to see how they handle it before making a comment on it.
They have been well produced though mostly slanted.
If Israel occupies Gaza, or worse still reintroduces settlers- no one will have to teach Palestinian children hate. They will have the IDF and settlers daily attacks, trying to force them off their land, and unwarranted arrests to learn from. Just like they are experiencing in the West Bank.
Not that being shot like fish in an every shrinking barrel won't have already turned many Gazan children into Israeli haters.
Shocking...LOL
Unfortunately, I read a few articles suggesting this, nothing by Walker though. This is about as nutty as they can get.
Yes, I'm well aware of the push to get Ukraine into NATO. I believe that Russia will continue what it's done in the past and is currently doing now which is flooding the country targeted with Russians and then claim at a later date that was needed to save Russians, just like they did in the Ukraine, currently doing to Finland and the Baltic countries.
There is a slant to most everything anyone produces.
Either would be a mistake.
Not that being shot like fish in an every shrinking barrel
That scenario could also be applied to Isael.
Finland is one of the newer NATO members and a thorn in the side of Russia. Putin will use every bluff to prevent nuclear missiles being placed in Finland, but they are only bluffs. Russia & the old Soviet Union never invaded a NATO member.
There is a slant to most everything anyone produces.
Ken Burns, who is a progressive has done an excellent job in keeping his opinions out of his historical documentaries.
"I said I wouldn't back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need. That's why today we're announcing new plans that, if implemented, would cancel student debt for millions more." ....Joe Biden
It is designed to go into effect just before the election. It would be a transfer of money from working class Americans to those who will be earning far more than those who didn't go to college. And after the election we can expect to hear from the SCOTUS once again on the matter. By then of course, Biden should be reelected if all the shit going down now works out.
“ Fani Willis Case Takes a New Turn”
One of the co-defendants in the sweeping RICO case against former President Donald Trump and his allies is accusing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of racism. Harrison Floyd, who led Black Voices for Trump in 2020, announced Monday that he and his lawyers were planning to bring an equal protection claim against Willis, saying that she was going after some of the defendants because of the color of their skin.
Floyd is one of two Black co-defendants in the Georgia case. "While my skin is also Black, DA Willis identifies me as white and views me as a defender of white supremacists due to my political beliefs," Floyd said in a video shared to social media. "Deep down, she wants to make me pay for what she feels is a betrayal to Black culture. Her words and actions consistently demonstrate a hate for white people and need to make this case about race."
https:// newsweek.com/fani-willis-ca se-takes-new-turn-1888141
Statistics like this are, for all practical purposes, almost meaningless. It sounds quite dramatic, but in truth it demonstrates almost nothing in terms of a threat to the public.
I The murder rate in the United States for the year 2019 was 5.0 murders per 100,000 people . I n 2022, the government agency counted 6.3 homicides per 100,000 population.
5 * 1.23 = 6.15
So during this great "Biden" murder spree the nation went from 5 murders per 100,000 people to 6 murders per 100,000 people.
In other words 99,994 people per 100,000 are not murdered.
This is a great increase in a crime and murder wave ? It is nonsense.
A jump of 23% from such a small beginning percentage does not mean anything close to what some think it does.
If you have 5 dollars and I give you 23% more dollars you now have 6. I doubt that would mean much to you.
Keep spinning- that is all Democrats/leftists are good for these days.
[deleted][✘]
Exactly, a better metric is the number shot (not counting suicide), which was around 89,222 (annual average 2017-2021). Urban trauma centers and other hospitals have gotten so good that 81% of those shot, survive. 16,651 are murdered and 503 killed unintentionally.
My God, you've done it again.
Let's see if there is a response.
It is easier and safer today to shoot someone than to get in a fistfight with them.
In West Side Story the gangs "rumbled", and if one of them had a knife it was a big deal.
Today it is easier to shoot someone.
Why?
80 million guns.
~360+ million.
Most in the hands of law-abiding citizens, still many millions in the hands of criminals of all sorts, who don't obey gun laws.
Excellent point
Few would use the murder rate to evaluate overall crime.
The same principle I am stating about the numbers applies to all crime statistics.
The vast vast majority of Americans are not victims of violent crime. Statistically very vew are. On what fair basis is there an overwhelming crime wave?
Well, the news tends to downplay the lawlessness of what's going on, primarily in large Dem controlled cities like NYC or Chicago. But ask ordinary citizens or a subway rider in New York what's happening on the street, and the will tell you their fears are greater now than ever before. That's why gun sales continue at an accelerated pace.
Here in the nation's Capital we have a unique city situation. The US attorney is appointed by the president and is accountable to the U.S. attorney general. He is is responsible for overseeing both federal and local crime. Because of this, I'm more confident in the statistical crime data that other cities or nationwide rollups.
Here, there has definitely been a crime wave. Unfortunately I can't find the number of non-fatal shooting but it's probably included 1,407 Assault w/a deadly weapon. Homicides in 2023 were up 35% from 22 at 274. Robberies were up 67%, Motor Vehicle Theft which includes car jackings was up 82% and arson 175%.
Homicides were 50% increase since 2015, yet closure rates are dropping to around 45% last year.
Crime and punishment are a big local issue right now.
John
The vast vast majority of Americans are not victims of violent crime. Statistically very vew are. On what fair basis is there an overwhelming crime wave?
Extending the range of your point
Very few people are victims of gun violence and even fewer are victims of mass shootings - so those two phenomena do not mean we need stricter gun laws.
was there a crime wave in 2015?
DC homicides up 36% in 2023 – the most in 20 years | wusa9.com
2022 - 203 murders
2023 - 274 murders
689,545 dc population
in 2023, 42 out of every 100,000 people were murdered
in 2022, 31 out of every 100,000 people were murdered
in 2023, 99,958 out of 100,000 people were not murdered
in 2022, 99,969 out of every 100,000 people were not murdered
i think a high murder rate year to year is a serious problem
in A NATION AWASH WITH GUNS IT IS NOT THE END OF CIVILIZATION
As I wrote in 5.2, homicide is a less meaningful metric that the number criminally shot. Medicine has gotten very good at saving gunshot victims, especially in urban areas where a full trauma center maybe only minutes away. Armed assaults is a better metric for judging violent crime.
Also in DC, like in your Chicago, by applying a homicide rate to the citywide population masks were most crimes happen and who the victims are. For instance, over half of last year's homicides where in 2 of the 8 wards. Ward 8 had 98 homicides and 324 assault w/a dangerous weapon. Ward 7 had 56 and 324 respectfully. At the other end of the spectrum, Ward 2 only had 11 murders and 94 assaults w/a dangerous weapon.
Population doesn't account for the disparity. Ward 8, the most dangerous ward had 78,500 in 2020 while Ward 2, the safest had 82,000. Ward 7, the second most dangerous had 76,000. Your chances of being shot are much higher in Ward 7 or 8 and very low in Ward 11. If I took out domestic disputes it's extremely low. City wide stats, like State stats can mask the size of crime and victimhood, in smaller areas.
the idea that right wingers care much about who gets shot in the ghetto is far fetched
I wrote nothing about right wingers, I just pointed out some weaknesses in your analysis.
Exactly, a better metric is the number shot (not counting suicide), which was around 89,222 (annual average 2017-2021). Urban trauma centers and other hospitals have gotten so good that 81% of those shot, survive. 16,651 are murdered and 503 killed unintentionally.
The New York Racing Association, Inc. ( @TheNYRA ) today announced it is providing 25 local nonprofit organizations with a reserved picnic table for each day of the 2024 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.
https:// belmontstakes.com/news/nyra-dona ting-belmont-stakes-racing-festival-reserved-picnic-paddock-tables-to-charitable-organizations
A day at the track for the disadvantaged?
You would be far better served if you thought before you type.
No Vic, the smelly homeless will not be at a picnic table next to you at Saratoga. Nor will drug addicts or the mentally ill. The tables were donated to charitable organizations to use for fundraising.
BREAKING : Alabama Senator Katie Britt has introduced a bill to prevent illegal immigrants from voting in federal elections.
Can you believe that we don't already have such a law?
WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE HELL??
we need this new law why?
It's just more red meat for the maga.
Non citizens (including illegal aliens) should not be allowed to vote in any election at the village through federal level
They don't.
What's the 'village level'? Never heard of that one.
It goes back to America's early history when we had vast wide-open spaces and not enough people to build it up.
We have no such problem now.
State elections.
Is that why California refused to turn over its voter rolls?
I live in a village, there are many villages in Ohio and other states.
We vote, we do not allow non=citizens to vote and here in Ohio we require a photo ID to be shown at the polling station.
For your edification
This your commment
Yes. Do you need a link?
Here:
EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Katie Britt Introduces Legislation To Prevent Illegal Immigrants From Voting In Federal Elections | Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (senate.gov)
As you have pointed out, we already have laws against illegal migrants voting in federal elections. Her bill actually does something that is not being done. When you get a federal ballot that provides a check box on whether you are a citizen, the criticism is that nobody is checking to see if those who check as citizens are telling the truth. Britt's Bill requires proof that one is a citizen!
Proof of citizenship is required to register to vote. Afterwards it is unnecessary...
So if they get through the first door, they can continue to get away with voting in American elections without being checked?
No, because only citizens can legally vote in statewide or national elections. It isn't a problem and simply does not happen...
You cannot possibly believe OR prove that. And evidence shows that it indeed can and does happen.
If that were true, we wouldn't have forms like the federal one or the California one asking if you were a citizen.
Illegal immigrants are not legally allowed to participate in federal elections in the United States. Federal law explicitly bans noncitizens from voting in federal elections, including races for president , vice president , Senate , or House of Representatives . Those who vote illegally may face fines , imprisonment , or both, and may also be subject to deportation 1 2 .
However, it’s important to note that local and state elections are governed by different rules. In some municipalities, noncitizens (including those who are undocumented ) may be allowed to vote in local elections 3 . But this does not extend to federal elections.
Claims suggesting that the Biden administration is scheming to register noncitizens to vote are misleading . U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has emphasized that eligible citizens have the right to vote, and cases of noncitizens accidentally ending up on voter rolls are statistically rare. States and counties have safeguards to check for voter eligibility, and becoming a U.S. citizen is a lengthy process, which is a requirement for voting in federal elections 4 .
In summary, while local rules may vary, federal elections remain off-limits to illegal immigrants . If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! 😊
First, states and cities give driver's licenses and ID to non-citizens to mostly keep them insured and allow them to work and pay taxes. Second, registered to vote (and you haven't proven it actually happens with non-citizens) is not the same as casting a vote.
Read post 8.1.11
I still can't belive we don't have a law that prevents them from being here
We already do...
But it is not working
How so? Where is your proof that it is not working?
they are here
'they are here'
That's not the issue
The issue is them voting in elections, that's not happening, so that's not a problem, there's a law on the books that they cannot vote so, NO PROBLEM.
Federal law definitely. All states also?? Not sure but there is also a federal law again that criminalizes marijuana use. But there are states that have said fuck you. So no harm no foul. Perhaps they are applying the ounce of prevention theory.
see 8.3.5
If they were not here this would not be an issuei
Ah, point well taken.
That's right, you just proved his point and mine. Laws are being ignored.
Why? It is already established law that it is always against the law for any noncitizens to vote in any national or statewide elections.
Those laws have been and will continue to be broken or worked around.
How so? Prove it.
Why? That's not a problem now.
prevent any chance of a problem
But it's not a problem now so there's no need for another law when there is already one on the books that they cannot vote.
When is she going to do a video? Will it be in her kitchen again?
Hopefully right after the 2024 election, congratulating the new President.
Will it be in her kitchen again?
She did that to get the women on the left's attention. How dare she go in the kitchen!