Most crime goes unreported. The reasons remain unexamined.
No one wants to be another statistic, but that's how the police police. Chicago keeps a tally of where crimes are called in, and stations more cops there. Only 2 out of every 5 violent crimes are told to police. But any attempt to prevent crime has to start somewhere. Cops follow where the data leads.
We know most crime is hidden from police because the Census Bureau also keeps statistics. The National Crime Victimization Survey asks a sample of Americans about all the nasty things that might have happened to them in the last six months.
I know. Nasty things have happened to me, and I've been asked. A census field representative showed up at my door pre-Covid. Trump was griping about the census so much that I figured whatever business the census taker had must be good. So we had a thorough discussion about crime. Very thorough.
Has something I carry—luggage, a wallet, purse, briefcase, book—been stolen?
Clothing, jewelry, or cellphone?
Bicycle or sports equipment?
Things in the home like a TV, stereo, or tools?
Things outside my home such as a garden hose or lawn furniture?
Things belonging to children in the household?
Things from a vehicle, such as a package, groceries, camera or CD? Wait, what's a CD?
OK, did anyone attempt to steal anything?
If this doesn't sound like the usual census experience, it isn't. The chatty gent was working on the National Crime Victimization Survey which collects data on trends in violent crime, costs of crime, crime in schools and how law enforcement responds.
Most census visits don't go into this much detail. Still, this long-form interview soft-pedaled one particular fact. A census rep would come back every six months to ask the same questions once again. This is how we learn about crimes beyond the statistics. Someone just keeps asking and asking.
How to not catch a case
It's all anonymous, and many months later it's all analyzed. This year the Justice Department issued a finding that only 7% of victims report identity theft to police. Incidents are "handled in another way," the write-up said. That's a vague way of saying, Why on earth would you call the cops?
During Covid I discovered how that works. The state sent me a notice that it was reviewing my unemployment claim, which was a shock because fortunately I was still working. This was upsetting. I called my chief of staff. I called the unemployment office. I froze my credit reports. I did everything but file a police report, but not from lack of trying. There was so much Covid unemployment fraud that Chicago police had given up on answering the identity theft hotline.
I feel for violent crimes in which the investigators just seem to pick at the wound, and court would be even worse. Sometimes the police just can't or won't do much. Once I drove a crime victim to the hospital, the only place a cop showed up. I couldn't provide much of a description, though, and I wasn't pushed for one. At least the officer was sympathetic. These people get locked up eventually, he said. I wasn't so sure.
Police show even less interest in getting to the bottom of property crimes. When there was a break-in at my house, one officer told me I should have had a "No trespassing" sign, asked why the alarm wasn't on, and generally made it seem like I was wasting his time. If I can't catch a burglar in the act, maybe I am.
Once a crime becomes a statistic, Chicago police find ways to minimize it. Most years they solve only 1 in 3 murders. In 2019 they congratulated themselves on clearing 1 in 2 cases, but it turned out that they took cases off the books when they couldn't make an arrest or get much evidence. Which is what happens when the police aren't there and the witnesses aren't much help.
There's also a long history of Chicago downgrading serious crimes—calling robberies thefts, or burglaries "criminal damage to property." Whatever the police put on the record, we can assume the situation is worse.
Statistics reduction strategy
Chicago is now under a consent decree to reform abusive tactics, and courts get to decide whether the city is living up to it. How do they do that? Police have a statistical dashboard, and an independent monitor keeps a scorecard for every paragraph of the decree. In its last report, it says police have complied with half of them.
Observers can try to intervene in court. One lawsuit tried to force police to deal with cases where they raid the wrong house. The city's response to the suit was basically, the consent decree doesn't mention search warrants, so we don't keep score on them.
Meanwhile, community policing has been minimized, offering scattershot and sketchy information. A recent community alert had identical descriptions of three suspects. "African American male, 16-30 years of age." Not helpful!
Fortunately, Chicago does not rely solely on police to make the public safe. It has a violence reduction strategy that works with young violent crime victims, and with perpetrators. The violence interrupters build relationships, mediate disputes and connect people to social services -- not treat them like statistics. And the city has deployed them to my community because a Violence Reduction Dashboard tells them to.
In the business world they say what gets measured gets managed. We've managed to make a mess of police accountability, where statistics are part of the problem and part of the solution. The census field rep certainly has a lot of questions for me, but I have questions too, about how little we really know about crime and how to address it.
I'm disappointed that the census taker wasn't asking why I call 911 or why I wouldn't bother, or what if anything happens when I do. But these days it's helpful to wonder why public safety problems are too complicated for police, and not go straight into a debate about whether to defund the police. People think they have all the answers. If we want to find solutions and not win debates, someone needs to ask questions. Even if it's a temp worker from the census.
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