Drop in violent crime rate may prove hazy indicator

Residents’ heads may be spinning with the ping ponging reports of West Jordan’s violent crime rates.

In their preliminary semiannual Uniform Crime Report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently reported that West Jordan, in keeping with the national trend, has seen a 29 percent drop in violent crime rates in the first six months of 2011, compared to the first six months of 2010.

In 2010, reports did show a 51 percent surge in violent crimes over the previous year, however.

But with such a large swing in numbers from year to year, what do these numbers really mean?

“When our violent crime rate went up 50 percent, it’s not like we quit policing or something. It’s kind of the normal ebb and flow of how things work out there,” Sgt. Drew Sanders said.

The bouncing back and forth itself is predictable; it’s predictable that the numbers are going to change, said Sanders.

But the numbers themselves can be deceiving.

If you want the numbers to go down, you can just stop taking reports on certain types of crime. On the other hand, factors such as hiring more police officers can make it appear as if your crime rate is going up because more crime is being reported

“The UCR report leaves out a whole bunch of different types of crimes,” Sanders said. “That’s a really broad brush, wide lens view of everything. So you can’t just look at that and go, well, crime rates up. Well, crime rates down. It’s more complicated than that.”

Sanders said the police department tries very hard to do proactive work and report effectively on what’s going on, but when the numbers go down, as is being indicated now, they have a hard time taking credit for that.

And it’s hard to attach a causal factor to why the numbers go up or go down, as each case is different.

Sanders said they won’t try to attach juicy causes to the numbers, such as the economy going bad, because they just don’t know.

“The bottom line is people make bad decisions, and it’s hard to know why sometimes,” Sanders said.

 “Some of it is seasonal. During very inclement weather, people aren’t out committing crimes as much as the other times.”

So they look at those factors to try to explain them.

“I’m not saying this is the case, but last spring was rather long. Does that mean that violent crime went down and it all happened in the last half? I don’t know,” Sanders said.