|
Hello all,
It's been asked that I pose a question to this list regarding the
collection of data.
First, a little history regarding our procedures:
When a squad is sent to a call and the incident requires a police report to
be written the Officer does not necessarily have to file the report immediately.
The officer may file the report during his shift or he may file it a week later.
By filing the report, I mean the officer actually writes the report. After a
supervisor reviews the report it is sent to our central records division where
clerical personnel enter the report into our mainframe computer system by typing
in the words that the officer wrote on the report. This whole process can take
from days to weeks from start to finish.
Our Data Services division is responsible for the reporting of UCR stats.
Consequently, they follow UCR reporting rules. They use the date that the crime
was actually reported to the department, while we use the date that the offense
actually occurred. Because the numbers coming out of our office don't usually
match those coming out of data services because of reporting criteria, we are
CONSTANTLY trying to explain to the Chief and other command staff that our
reason for being is not the same as Data Services. We are to provide as accurate
as possible information quickly to assist the command staff in personnel
deployment and locating crime trends. Data Service's main concern is purely
accurate statistics.
Does your crime analysis unit use "real time" reporting data?
Is your crime analysis unit responsible for UCR reporting or does your
department have a separate division to handle such things? If you have a
separate unit to handle UCR reporting, do your numbers match?
Does your Crime Analysis unit query data by the date of occurrence or by
the date reported?
If I've rambled a bit, I apologize.
I look forward to hearing your responses so that we may finally put this to
rest.
|
