Meaningless Statistics?

As the sole source of such national statistics, the FBI has once again jarred Americans in its 35th annual report on Crime in the United States. Among persons under 19, says the FBI, "arrests for serious crimes increased 47% in 1965 over 1960." Are the facts really that grim -- or are they even grimmer?

Many lawyers and sociologists now question the quality of the FBI statistics. The critics point out that the FBI simply compiles data volunteered by police departments, many of which report crimes in different ways, including not reporting crimes in order to soothe the public. Although the FBI now collects statistics from 8,500 law- enforcement agencies representing about 94% of the U.S. population, Columbia University Sociologist Sophia Robison charges that the final FBI summaries are "not worth the paper they're writ ten on."

Friendly Murders. According to the FBI, for example, Philadelphia endured a startling 70% increase in serious offenses between 1951 and 1953. Why? Simply because one police district failed to report 5,000 complaints in 1951. The new FBI report itself warns readers to discount this year's Baltimore figures, which show a 71% crime increase from 1964 to 1965. Reason: more accurate reporting in 1965, compared with previous years when Baltimore cops kept the peace largely by not tallying a great many crimes.

Sociologists are further disturbed by the FBI's "index crimes" -- murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft, which are usually lumped together in determining whether U.S. crime is rising. The index is misleading, charges Professor Robison, because "less serious crimes account for approximately 85% of the total arrests." Critics of the statistics also question FBI indications that murder is rampant in the streets. In the fine print, the 1964 FBI report itself noted that 80% of U.S. murders are committed indoors by the victim's friends or relatives.

Backward Clocks. Another debate rages over the FBI's "crime clocks." In tallying crimes against the person, the 1964 crime clock registered one murder every hour, one robbery every five minutes, one aggravated assault every three minutes. By ignoring the number of people actually vulnerable to such crimes, says Professor Robison, the crime clock presents a distorted picture: "Since the base figures cover an entire year, the number of offenses should be divided by 365 days to represent the chances that any one person would risk. Utilizing this method, rough calculations for murder in 1964 suggest that in the country as a whole, the chance of being, murdered on a given day is approximately one in two million."

University of Maryland Sociologist Peter Lejins has urged key reforms in the FBI reports, which he himself helps prepare. Auto thefts, he says, should be divided between cars actually stolen for resale by seasoned pros and those merely "borrowed" and then abandoned by joyriding youths. Not impressed, the FBI has rejected Lejins' idea on the ground that it might encourage joyriding. Lejins also questions the FBI's most dramatic statistic--that U.S. crime is "rising six times faster than the population." In fact, most crimes have always been committed by persons aged 18 to 24; the 1945 "war baby" boom has increased that age group by 25% across the country. Lejins argues that the FBI should at least acknowledge the increase as a key factor in "rising crime." So far, the FBI has kept the matter under advisement.

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