Part I Crimes (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, auto theft, larceny, arson and burglary) generally give a indication of the amount of criminality in area; these crimes are driven by citizens reports. Part II crimes (prostitution, narcotics, weapons...) are an indication of police proactively, they are driven by arrests. In theory, these two categories are linked. If officers make more Part II arrests then Part I crimes should decline. This however is not a fix rule, and in some years Part I crimes have decreased while Part II number decreased.
Those who engage in criminal behavior do not specialize in one type of deviant behavior. I know from experience, that if you sit and wait many hours or days for a burglar, you'll never find one. I have caught a murderer, not because he was standing in the street with the smoking gun, but because he jaywalked in front of my patrol car. More often than not officers are in the position to see Part II crimes occur than Part I. Both are important and should be enforced. Also, both categories need attention, and focus too much on one category of crime will lead to problems elsewhere. Imagine the whole police department dedicated to focus on one crime only, let's say homicide. Such an effort may result in the solving of every case. It may even lead to a lower homicide rate. But there would be chaos in the city because of the deliberate neglect of other types of criminal behavior and crime control. There is a balance between the two and it is not quantifiable. It is easy to demand that officers should be in the right spots, at the right times, and doing the right things: but very difficult to do because of competing demands for all types of police services. Directing a healthy mixture of Part I and Part II enforcement is more of an art than a science in ensuring that the work is done in the right areas and right times. The CJIS division of the FBI does indeed audit the crime numbers submitted to the BCA each year. However, those numbers are not routinely checked at the source. This falls audit involves a look before the numbers are submitted to the state. It is necessary, not because of any chancery with entering or reporting of crime, but because the Department has lost the institutional knowledge on how it is done. This link is the complete FBI handbook on UCR crimes http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/handbook/ucrhandbook04.pdf. It provides all sorts of rules and examples on how to count crimes. A smaller department takes these rules and counts crimes by pencil and paper. The Department has taken these rules and concepts and integrated them into a computer program that counts crimes. The computer program was created and works with the Department's Report Management System. The people who programmed the application are gone and there is not anyone left who could diagram how the program works. The Department thinks it is working correctly , although there have been some interruptions in service, but needs to know if it is working correctly, as staffing, budgets and many other policing service choices are based (in part) on crime numbers. Before spending tens of thousands of the cities tax-payers dollars to deconstruct and examine the program, it would seem to be prudent to bring in an outside agency that might confirm the program is counting all that it is designed to count. And to do such an audit without further cost to the city. It's not extraordinary, just never been done at MPD. That said, you can count all the crime stats you want, but you need a adequate complement of cops to do something about it. How many? The report from DC suggests that a 50% increase in police staffing brings a quantifiable 15% decrease in crime (the majority of reduction in properety crimes) See details at the following link http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/TerrorAlertProofs.pdf. Using this model, this would equal 400 new MPD cops at an additional $30 million per year. If the City is not in the position to make such a bold leap, then 60 new cops is a good start. Greg Reinhardt Excelsior REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
