Saturday, January 30, 2010

Debunking Dallas crime stats

Dave Hiott at the Dallas News Crime Blog doesn't know whether to believe Dallas crime stats anymore, despite purported improvements in 2009. He provides this excellent list of recent Dallas News stories critical of DPD crime data reporting:

The major stories:

-- Police not counting all crimes -- Omitting legitimate auto burglary cases improves stats; system being reviewed
-- Do police count all burglaries? Kunkle says intent must be clear in break-ins as some fault classification system
-- Experts: Dallas undercount of assaults builds 'artificial image'

And there's more:

-- Crime counts to change -- Procedural move, review planned after car break-ins underreported
-- Steve Blow: Truth takes a beating in Dallas crime stats
-- Editorial: Crime statistics must be accurate
-- Dallas police count more car burglary reports

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