Recent changes in the way Dallas reports crime probably won’t be enough to negate the city’s ranking as the most crime-ridden major city, says the Dallas Morning News. Last month, Dallas police said they had been incorrectly reporting some crimes for years to the FBI. The guidelines allow multiple crimes to be reported as a single criminal act when reporting some property crimes, and Dallas hadn’t been consistently using the rule.
Over-reporting an estimated 3,400 offenses is far less than the almost 14,000 offenses that would have had to have been eliminated in 2006 to avoid being ranked No. 1 in crime among cities with more than 1 million residents. Previously released statistics had shown that crime had been flat in Dallas for the first half of the year. The newly revised statistics show that overall crime dropped nearly 3 percent. The different numbers don’t mean that Dallas suddenly has less crime or that the city doesn’t have a crime problem. Nor is the way police take reports from crime victims or investigate crimes changing. “Dallas is a city with way too much crime and too many victims,” said Chief David Kunkle.
Link: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/081607dnmetdalcrime.2ee1bc8.html