Friday's Dallas Morning News carried an article by Richard Abshire that gave additional perspective to the information I initially shared here and more here about the computer coding problems that caused Garland to underreport our crime statistics to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report over the last few years.
 

Crime in Garland rises in '07, but computer glitch prevents look at how much

12:00 AM CDT on Friday, June 6, 2008
By RICHARD ABSHIRE / The Dallas Morning News
rabshire@dallasnews.com
 
Crime was up in Garland in 2007, but police aren't sure by how much because of a glitch in the department's computerized records-management system.
 
Explaining the problem to the City Council this week, Police Chief Mitch Bates said that since 2000, the department has underreported the kinds of major crimes that all law enforcement agencies report to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports.
 
"Was there an increase in crime? Yes," Chief Bates told the council. "Exactly how much crime increased in UCR numbers, we don't know. It's not a simple process."
 
Because the city undershot crime reports in the past, last year's increase over 2006 appears worse than it is, officials said.
 
A manual review of the data is under way and might take weeks or even months, the chief said.
 
Dramatic increases in the city's crime numbers began showing up in the fourth quarter of 2007, when corrections were made to the UCR reports that the department sends to Austin, where the Department of Public Safety catalogs statewide information and forwards it to the FBI.
 
The department's UCR data show that violent crimes like murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault were up 32.6 percent last year, while property crimes – burglary, theft and auto theft – were up 4.8 percent.
 
That adds up to a 6.7 percent increase in total crimes reported last year.
 
UCR standards do not allow a department to change data once reported, so Garland will be sporting some unappealing numbers when the FBI publishes its 2007 Uniform Crime Report.
 
At Tuesday's work session, council member Laura Perkins Cox congratulated Chief Bates for identifying and disclosing the problem.
 
"That could not have been a good day at the Police Department, but you found it yourself," she said. "I appreciate your openness and transparency."
 
Council member Doug Athas said Wednesday that he saw an upside in the situation.
 
"It's depressing that we had this glitch," he said. "On the other hand, it's encouraging that the chief and others have been so persistent in finding and correcting it.
 
"I have confidence in the chief because he's been so upfront about the problem, and I'm confident that the numbers going forward will be extremely accurate."