The Truth or Something like the Truth
| Author | M.A.P. Willmer |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7905200404 |
| Published date | 01 October 1979 |
| Date | 01 October 1979 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
M.A.P. WILLMER, MA
Reader in Operational Research
Manchester Business School
THE TRUTH OR
SOMETHING
LIKE THE TRUTH
"New York Police cheat on crime figures". So ran a Times'
headline introducing an article about a police investigation in New
York which resulted in the discovery of a small number of precinct
officers who had falsified their crime statistics by understating the
number of robberies reported by the public. Moreover, the
suggestion was made that the temptation for precinct Commanders
to manipulate their crime statistics had increased since the city's
Police Commissioner laid greater emphasis on crime control as a
factor counting towards promotion.
One wonders whether British policemen, too, ever manipulate
their crime statistics to show headquarters that they appear more
successful than is actually the case. From the experience of a
criminologist who, according to the Home Affairs correspondent- of
the Times, "went to the Police Station to report the theft ofhis never
to-be-recovered raincoat from a Library cloakroom, only to have his
complaint recorded in the 'Lost Property' book," one can only
suppose that occasionally they do.
To appreciate fully the significance of the behaviour of the police
officer, consider how the success of the police, particularly in their
role as crime solvers, is measured. Traditionally the measure used is
the "clear-up" or detection rate, which isdefined as the proportion of
crimes known to the police that are cleared up. In recent years as the
crime rate has soared upwards the fact that the average clear-up-rate
has remained steady (and in some cases slightly improved) has been
used by Home Office spokesmen to reassure a concerned public.
Undoubtedly, the clear-up rate has the advantage that it is easy to
caiculate. Nevertheless, it has many inherent disadvantages as a
measure of the performance of policemen as detectives. To illustrate
this it may be helpful to trace the routes by which certain events come
to be recorded in the official criminal statistics or not recorded. A
flow chart showing diagramatically the basic routes is given in Fig. I.
Many crimes, of course, are not reported to the police even though
they have been witnessed or the results of their having been
committed have been noticed. There are many reasons for this. In
cases of blackmail and protection rackets, the victim is often afraid to
tell the police. In some districts the public tend to regard the police
more as their natural enemies than as friends.' Where pilfering is
358 October /979
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