Senior police officials around the nation are concerned that the sharp drop in crime in recent years has produced new pressure on police departments to show ever-decreasing crime statistics and might be behind incidents in several cities in which commanders have manipulated crime data.
So far this year, there have been charges of falsely reporting crime statistics here, in New York, Atlanta and Boca Raton, Fla., resulting in the resignation or demotion of high-ranking police commanders.In Boca Raton, for example, a police captain, with the knowledge of the police chief, systematically downgraded property crimes, reducing the city's felony rate by almost 11 percent in 1997.
In Philadelphia, the city has had to withdraw its crime figures from the national system maintained by the FBI for 1996, 1997 and for at least the first half of 1998 because of underreporting, downgrading serious crimes into less serious incidents, and sloppiness. Because of Philadelphia's size - it accounts for 2 percent of all slayings in the United States - the removal of its numbers could skew the rate for the whole nation.
Gil Kerlikowske, former police commissioner of Buffalo, N.Y., said the pressure on police departments to prove their performance through reduced crime figures, with promotions and pay raises increasingly dependent on good data, "creates a new area for police corruption and ethics."
Experts say they believe these incidents do not mean that the nationwide drop in crime since 1992 is illusory. But they are beginning to question whether politicians seeking office, the news media and the public should attach so much importance to the release of the latest crime figures.