Getting the Crime Rate Down: Political Pressure and Crime Reporting

Abstract

. . . [F] ear is being swept from the streets of somethough not all- American cities.John Mitchell, September, 1971New York Times, 1971: IV, 16Enterprising police are making news rather than history in the preparation of their annual reports. Dry tabulations are giving way to charts, pictures, and other illustrations that catch the eye and tell the story of the problems and accomplishments of the department.Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1966a: 58During the 1960's, “crime in the streets” emerged as a major political issue. 1 Consequently, measurement of changes in the amount of crime also became politically important. As a candidate in 1968, Richard Nixon, recognizing this, proposed the use of the District of Columbia as a site for an evaluation of his anti-crime proposals by means of crime statistics: There is another area where the Federal Government has an opportunity to make a dramatic demonstration of its concern with the problem of crime, its commitment to new solutions and the efficacy of its proposals. That is in Washington, D.C.the nation's capital where the authority of the Federal Government is great and its prerogatives many. Washington, D.C. should be a model city as far as law enforcement is concerned-a national laboratory (New York Times, 1972).

Understanding and assessing school police officers: A conceptual and methodological comment

“…Although it would be pleasant to believe that no law enforcement official would utilize such a disingenuous tactic to advance a private agenda, that is not the case (Loveday, 2000;Seidman & Couzens, 1974;Selke & Pepinsky, 1982); a contretemps which Baer and Chambliss (1997, p. 93) felicitously described as "law enforcement propaganda masquerading as fact." Owing to the threat of lawsuits and public relations problems, school police officials probably face a greater temptation than other law enforcement agents to manipulate the fashion in which criminal offenses are reported.…”

Record keeping practices: Consequences of accounting demands in a public clinic

“…For example, in a recent study, Margolin (1992) found a range of factors shaped social workers' use of records in child abuse investigations, including pressures on their time and relying on stereotypical conceptions to reduce the ambiguity of a case. Similar descriptions of how workers manipulate records, either to facilitate their cause or the client's interest, are found in studies of health care workers (Macintyre 1978, Rees 1981, parole officers (McCleary 1975), police officers (Meehan 1986, Seidman & Couzens 1974, welfare case workers (Zimmerman 1969), juvenile court officers (Needleman 1981), and insurance adjusters (Ross 1970).…”

A classroom exercise for teaching the problems of offense classification and tabulation associated with the UCR

“…Others may believe that an offense is not serious enough to report or that it is a personal matter. Victims often fail to report crimes because of their relationship with the offender or because they believe that reporting would be extremely traumatic for them (Maguire and Pastore 1995;Schur 1984;Seidman and Couzens 1974;Skogan 1975).…”