We’ve spoken before in these pages about how bureaucrats “fudge” statistics to present the most favorable image to the public. It’s long been the practice in many cities to either not record, or mis-classify, violent crimes, in order to allow local politicians to boast that they’re being “tough on crime” and point to the statistics as evidence that they’re doing a good job.
Of course, the reality is the diametric opposite. City crime, particularly inner-city crime, is way up across the country, and getting worse. Therefore – inevitably – the efforts to mask that are getting more blatant by the day. Philadelphia is the latest example.
“They’re definitely cooking the books,” agreed one veteran detective. “At least 50 percent of them [suspicious deaths] are really homicides, and that’s being generous.”
The murder rate in Philadelphia — already the second-highest in the nation among the ten largest cities — is on a record pace this year with 255 murders as of Aug. 2nd. That’s a 34 percent jump over this point in 2019, when we had only 190 homicides. At that monthly rate, the city will hit 437 murders for the year, the highest number since 2006, when the city racked up 406 murders. The all-time record, which could be broken this year if the weather stays hot, is 497 murders in 1990.
Along with a record number of murders, the number of dead bodies being classified by the cops as “suspicious” is also on the rise. So far this year, there have been a reported 97 deaths classified as “suspicious,” which kept them out of the homicide total. While the department faithfully tracks homicides, it does not publish annual statistics for suspicious deaths.
About the rising number of suspicious deaths this year, the veteran commander said, “Most are definitely being used to hide homicides.” He speculated that of the 97 suspicious deaths, as many as 80 of the cases marked “S” are probably murders.
There’s more at the link.
There are many other crimes that are not being properly classified. Take rioting, for example. How many actual riots, involving property damage and/or injury to citizens, have taken place in cities like Minneapolis, MN, Portland, OR or Seattle, WA over the past few months, yet have never been recorded as such? Instead, they’re noted as simply “creating a disturbance” or “simple assault” or “disorderly conduct”. Those aren’t felonies, and therefore don’t show up in the serious crimes statistics.
This can have a direct and immediate effect on people across the country. If you’re looking to move to a safer place, and rely on official statistics to decide what fits that category, the odds are fairly good that you’ll be misled – but in the absence of accurate information, no-one knows they’re being misled (unless they have access to local people who can tell them more accurately what’s going on). In the same way, national crime statistics are skewed, because the FBI and the Justice Department can only classify the crimes reported to them by local and regional police forces. If those reports are incomplete or manipulated, that’ll carry over to the national figures as well.
Just one more thing to be aware of as you try to chart a safe course for yourself and your loved ones through the mess that is America today . . .
Peter
This isn't just with actual crime. Every year, administrators meet with teachers in the days before students return to school, so they can explain to us how they will not be disciplining students for their misbehavior.
The only thing students get in trouble for is what they call the "big three:" Alcohol or drug possession, fighting, weapons possession.
In the case of alcohol or drugs, they are suspended for a week or two, then sent to an alternative school for 30 days, and must complete a diversion program that requires them to attend 4 hour long evening meetings for the first offense.
Fighting is usually a three day suspension.
Weapons possession is 10 days for anything except firearms, or one year in an alternative school for firearms.
Note that I have students sitting in my classes with felony convictions for drug and sex offenses, so as old as 20. They are sitting next to 15 year olds.
And not just big towns but suburbs also.
Last year a friend had someone kick in his door thinking they were going to rob a drug house. Not the right house obviously. Friend came out of bedroom to see sumdood pointing a pistol at his son. Friend retrieved his on and while he was doing this, sumdood ran.
Friend went outside to see where sumdood was and took fire.
Friend returned fire, from across the street and hit him center mass but low.
Police classified it all as attempted burglary.
There has always been a move amongst progressively run police agencies to downplay felonies, to make themselves and the city look better than it is.
Then there is the move by city councils, county officials and state lawmakers to decriminalize crime. Turn felonies into misdemeanors, turn misdemeanors into civil punishments.
Just like Sweden. Did you know their 'crime stats' don't include rape or assaults by certain minority men? Or bombings – Sweden has hand grenades and IEDs go off all the time, but those are linked to certain minority men (and now some minority women) so they don't count.
Do a rape as an actual ethnic Swede or other ethnic European? Or bombing, arson, assault or any other crime, like protecting one's daughter from not-rape-because-certain-minority-men or not-murder-because-certain-minority-men? Oh, those are real crimes and reported as such.
Why do people want us to become Sweden?
It sounds off to me. In the past police didn't decide what was a homicide, the coroner did and every body found dead not in a hospital is subject to a coroner's inspection and if he writes down "Homicide", then it is a homicide and should be counted as such.
Chicago has that. The Coroner pronounces cause of death,as homicide,or their new favorite, unknown.
Unknown was used a year ago as tge cause of death for a body found wired to a chair in an abandoned warehouse, with most of its bones broken, probably with the iron pipe lying next to the body, dessicated and partially eaten by rats and scavengers.
Coroners report stated that as death by exposure could not be ruled out, the cause was unknown, and so a homicide investigation was never opened.
See, homicides are down!!!
John in Indy
Hey Peter;
You want to know the actual crime rate of an area, where the good area and the "bad" areas are? Go to a delivery pizza place and talk to the experienced pizza driver, they know where the good areas are and the bad areas are. Best $10 bucks you will ever spend, trust me, they know the area and will tell you the where to go and not to go, their livelihood depends on not getting rolled.