Crime up, crime down?

11/13/2006

A New Haven Register Editorial

Maybe the number of major crimes in New Haven increased 1 percent last year. Maybe for the first six months of this year, crime was down 3 percent.

The crime figures are from the New Haven Police Department and should come with a major footnote: the figures aren't necessarily accurate. Because of budget cuts, the department has not audited its crime figures for accuracy since 2002. So crimes may be counted twice or not properly recorded.

They are raw figures that don't meet federal reporting standards. As a result, the city doesn't submit uniform crime reports to the FBI for the annual federal analysis of national crime trends.

And, New Haven isn't including in the annual national rankings of America's safest to most dangerous cities that are based on the FBI numbers.

That doesn't mean crime is off the map in New Haven. But, its details would be much clearer if the Police Department had enough workers to produce accurate crime statistics.