As the crime analyst for the Newton Police Department, I can confidently state to you whether or not car stereo thefts have increased in relation to previous years. I can tell you how many domestic assaults our officers responded to last year or how many Toyota Camrys were reported stolen from this city. I collect such data, just like many other analysts do, through a very cumbersome, time consuming, manual data entry process. I know of no other way to do it, given my current resources, and still be confident of my accuracy.

I collect that sort of information and much more because I think it is of importance to my officers and of value to know as we consider quality of life issues in this community. I am not required to document any of that information in my monthly Uniform Crime Reports. I diligently collect and tally all of the data that the UCRs do require, make every effort to get the data to the State Police by the middle of the next month, and quietly pat myself on the back if I am able to avoid a call from their office questioning my numbers or math.

As I complete the task each month, I wonder why I am not required to delineate between domestic and non-domestic assaults, or why I am not required to document information on fraud cases. Incidents such as those take up the vast majority of departmental time and resources. I do compile such data for internal use, but it seems to me that such information would be of greater value than much else that is required. At the same time, I am unsure what the estimated property values have to do with crime rates or crime prevention. Tabulating the broad categories of property values is extremely time consuming, and can be of little use for any type of accurate comparison.

Perhaps it is the complicated nature of these tabulations that leads to so many police departments refusing to participate in the UCR program at all. According to an August 6, 2000 Boston Globe article by Jacob H. Fries, up to “two dozen” Massachusetts communities do not submit any type of crime reports. The article further states that Massachusetts is among the ten worst states in the country for disclosing information on violent crimes.

Some departments utilize their records management system to calculate and tabulate their UCR statistics. This is a faster process, but many officers will admit that they are aware the data contains many inaccuracies. Corrections are rarely made in how the incident is categorized by dispatch and what the officer actually determines the incident to be upon responding.

Each month, I must refer back to the handbook to decipher the UCR robbery location categories. I am still unsure what a “commercial house” is, and am still unsure if that is where I should tally a robbery that takes place at a department store. Assaults are equally confusing. It is quite possible to brandish a weapon in an assault, with no intention of causing aggravated injuries. The handbook states that all assaults involving weapons should be classified as aggravated, even though the definition of aggravated assault – hands, fists, feet – relates to the seriousness of the inflicted injuries.

I recognize that the National Incident-based Reporting System seeks to rectify many of these issues. I am sad to say however, that the change is simply too great a leap for my department and many other city departments. There has been no indication that the time, money, resources and training that would be necessary to implement the NIBRS format would bring any significant benefit to the department. Much the data required for NIBRS is included within narrative reports, but the translation to a format that would make the data reportable to the state and the FBI is too complex and costly for many departments.

Perhaps a streamlined UCR system would encourage greater participation nationwide. Eliminating dollar values from the calculations would significantly reduce the time and effort needed to complete the reports. With the elimination of the dollar values, other categories could be expanded to include information of greater crime prevention value. Perhaps in that way there could be a more gradual progression toward the level of data required by NIBRS.

Until the data are collected and tabulated in such a way as to ensure a reasonable level of accuracy and allow for comparisons from town to town and region to region, claims of crime rates being up or down will mean little to analysts, or, in truth, to the citizens we serve. Until greater accuracy is achieved, it will be difficult to call for increased participation and the cycle will continue.

Until then, we simply won’t know, and don’t know, if crime is up or down.