The perception of crime within the United States may change amid growing concerns that the Justice Department, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, is working to gain political control over crime data, according to a recent New York Times article.
The confidentiality of crime statistics is preserved by an independent agency within the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Opponents to Ashcroft’s plans say if Ashcroft attains authority, he can utilize crime data and manipulate the findings according to his political agenda.
There are many variables to be considered in the collection of crime data. Often, reported crimes exclude underlying information, and, as a result, an inaccurate depiction of the event is recorded, according to the Times’ article.
Furthermore, most crimes go unreported, so the statistics misrepresent whether the crime rate is increasing or decreasing.
John Pray, associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin and chair of the Innocence Project, a Wisconsin organization that aims to free wrongly convicted prison inmates, said these extraneous factors involved in statistics could easily be disseminated for political gain.
“One should note that statistics can be used to show almost anything,” he said. “The use of statistics should be looked at skeptically, because they can be viewed from two sides.”
In addition, statistical crime reports are translated into the standardized Uniform Crime Reporting format, which is primarily used as a broad indicator of criminal activity.
“The UCR does not give specific or direct accounts of incidents,” said Ray Luick, program manager in the Office of Justice Assistants. “If you read too deeply into it (UCR), it could lead to false assumptions.”
This political influence on crime data is a pertinent issue across the country at the national, state, city, county and campus levels in that it can undermine the validity of crime statistics.
The state of Wisconsin is taking strides towards ensuring its statistical integrity.
“Wisconsin’s efforts are afloat, and it is one of the leading states looking to increase the quality and completeness of collected data,” said Peggy Lautenschlager, former U.S. attorney. “Without overburdening police and law officials, we should strive to get a complete collection of crime data, because there will then be more opportunities to deal with the data fairly.”
For federal statistical agencies to remain credible, the release date on crime reports must be promptly met, and delayed crime reports may be deemed as unreliable because they might have been subjected to political interference, Lautenschlager said.
“Criminal-justice experts feel that people look at crime statistics that might not be appropriate or valid, because significant changes have been made by Ashcroft,” Lautenschlager said.
If complete authority is granted to the attorney general, it is likely the data could be inappropriately categorized and released, Lautenschlager said.
