| Can anyone speak to whether public statistics are accurate or not? Can anyone reassure me that these statistics are impossible to manipulate? I have a suspicion these statistics are only accurate and available when it is convenient for the people responsible for providing those statistics. Isn't it the case that the police are responsible for providing statistics to the public? During the pandemic and during the George Floyd protests, there were political reasons for gathering information and using to show that A) "crime is up!" or B) "crime is actually still historically low!" A few years ago, I was frustrated about the reporting on these statistics, and went to a variety of police web sites. Some of the websites said: "Because of the pandemic, we are so overwhelmed by crime and everything, we cannot provide current statistics!" And, other sites said "Because of the pandemic, we are so overwhelmed by crime and everything, we cannot provide past statistics!" And, some websites just completely won't load. If a police department does not want to pay their IT person, or the company that provides it can't get their act together, the website will be down and you cannot get information directly from the police. If you have a category of crime that is high, the police need to either fix that problem, or fix the numbers. Right? I know that some sources of information come from the FBI. But, aren't those numbers often provided by the police? And, in certain parts of the country were in favor of defunding the police, and certain parts of the country are filled with "Blue Lives Matters" people. Won't the police in the defund areas want to show crime is up? Won't those in regions with different sensibilities want to show their policing works? Can anyone tell me why this isn't a problem? It is anecdotal, but aren't there areas of certain cities where the citizens have stopped reporting crimes because the police don't come anymore? How is that reflected in the numbers, if at all? Can anyone else see a big gaping hole in how these stats are collected and used? Is there standardization across the country about these statistics? |