tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225570644228196036.post7171499540692406926..comments2024-02-24T05:11:30.646-06:00Comments on The Director's Desk: Tip of the icebergTom Casadyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03188041481309059441noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225570644228196036.post-40309991145635374552007-11-26T15:39:00.000-06:002007-11-26T15:39:00.000-06:00Maybe other cities report stats differently than L...Maybe other cities report stats differently than Lincoln does.<BR/>Maybe they don't report possible hate crimes unless there's overwhelming evidence that it happened.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225570644228196036.post-28247350342977767572007-11-23T17:24:00.000-06:002007-11-23T17:24:00.000-06:00I do like this blog, and of course the LPD inciden...I do like this blog, and of course the LPD incident summaries. Some agencies, like <A HREF="https://scsapps.unl.edu/policereports/default.aspx" REL="nofollow">UNLPD</A>, also have incident summaries (with the feature of clearance status), but the only thing I've seen that's even somewhat similar to your blog posts is over in Colorado, at <A HREF="http://www.co.larimer.co.us/sheriff/" REL="nofollow">Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden's site</A>.<BR/><BR/>When a civilian wants to know what's going on in Lincoln with crime, they should come to this blog and to the LPD site for incident summaries and CrimeView, and only go to the fishwrap as an afterthought.<BR/><BR/>It's easy to see the simiilarities between this kind of reporting-rate puzzle and something like an engineering problem. You need to nail down the relevant numbers, in order to know where you actually stand, before you run off in eight different directions, spending money like mad and hoping to stumble over an answer.<BR/><BR/>To oversimplify, is your speedometer corrrectly set up for your tire diameter?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225570644228196036.post-35532792314868532612007-11-23T08:09:00.000-06:002007-11-23T08:09:00.000-06:00Well put, 2:14. I'm surprised at the level of you...Well put, 2:14. I'm surprised at the level of your knowledge about the vagaries of comparative police statistics. You've posted similar comments before, and whether you're in the police business or not, it's apparent you have an unusually good grasp of this complex issue.<BR/><BR/>Come to think of it, this was the subject of my <A HREF="http://lpd304.blogspot.com/2007/04/forbes-magazine-rated-lincoln-this-week.html" REL="nofollow">very first blog post</A>. Hard to believe it's been 10 months since I started this project.Tom Casadyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03188041481309059441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225570644228196036.post-14347653442892019502007-11-23T02:14:00.000-06:002007-11-23T02:14:00.000-06:00As you've mentioned here before, other than murder...As you've mentioned here before, other than murder and auto theft (and business robbery, if it were broken out of all robberies, which it usually isn't), you can't assume that any crime is always reported. When there's no corpse, or no insurance claim to file for reimbursement of losses (the insurance companies require police reports before they'll cut a check), there are a lot of things that keep crimes from being reported. If we can safely assume that nearly all types of the other crimes are under-reported to varying degrees, we can ask why, but first we can try to quantify just how under-reported that type of crime is.<BR/><BR/>Let's look at the reporting thing another way. Only a sliver of people are well-acquainted with both Lincoln and Chicago, but a larger slice are familiar with both Lincoln and Omaha. Line up the usual UCR stats for the two cities <A HREF="http://www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=Lincoln&s1=NE&c2=Omaha&s2=NE" REL="nofollow">side-by-side</A>. We know we can trust the murder and auto theft rates the most, and we see that Omaha's murder rate is over 4x ours and their auto theft rate is over 3x ours. We can assume that those rate disparities are accurate. However, common sense tells us that a city with 4x our murder rate does not have the same forcible rape rate as ours, no matter what the number says! <BR/><BR/>Our gut instinct tells us that forcible rape in Omaha is significantly under-reported, in comparison to Lincoln. The puzzler is hanging a number on that disparity, and that's a problem set that's way above my pay grade.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com