Tuesday, February 21, 2012

94% Clearance Rate

You want to see how easy it is to manipulate statistics until the numbers start to scream? Look how they do it in Washington DC:
  • For the past two months, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has touted the city’s astronomically high homicide closure rate — 94 percent for 2011 — and warned anyone contemplating murder in the District to think twice.

    “Your risk of being caught is pretty high if you commit a homicide in D.C.,” Lanier told The Washington Post in December.

Wow. They must have the best detectives in the whole world, right?

  • But an examination of District homicides found that the department’s closure rate is a statistical mishmash that makes things seem much better than they are. The District had 108 homicides last year, police records show. A 94 percent closure rate would mean that detectives solved 102 of them. But only 62 were solved as of year’s end, for a true closure rate of 57 percent, according to records reviewed by The Post.

    D.C. police achieved the high closure rate last year by including about 40 cases from other years that were closed in 2011.

57% is still almost double Chicago's rate. But you can see exactly how data manipulation leads to a slightly skewed view of results and how the political structure can use the revised data to achieve a certain end.

Anyone want to bet what big city department is about to start torturing their own numbers to make sure a certain politician has a shot at a Senate seat, maybe even a presidential run?

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18 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My mother always reminded me that numbers could be manipulated to make them say whatever the creator of a statistical report wanted them to say.

That is why it is so important to not only include the raw data and methodology used in creating such a report, but also to have both the data and methodology audited to protect the presenter of any report from preculding truth from reaching the eyes of the reader.

Thank you for being the auditor of record and helping to protect the citizens of Chicago from the constant barage of bullshit which so frequently pours forth from the unfriendly confines of 3510 South Michigan Avenue and 121 North LaSalle Street.

2/21/2012 12:32:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Back in the day Chicago did have a solve rate in the 90's because detectives were allowed to do their job. Times have changed and this is the mess that we have in our streets today.

2/21/2012 03:12:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is easy to manipulate the homicide clearance rate by creative report writing, which leads to a exceptional clearing report.

Homicide units have always employed good fiction writers as the bosses do not want low statistical numbers staring them in the face!

2/21/2012 06:37:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

never understood why they did it that way ... Chicago does it that way too (add in all the old cases solved to the present year totals)...


Heard Area 5 has the best clearance rate ? true, I don't know... but who really cares about homicides anyway? what there's 400-500 per year ? ... but Chicago generates about a half million case reports each year ... I remember one year we went over the million mark in generating case reports



homicide clearance is more about the quality of the citizen than the quality of the detective .... how many detectives actually wintessed a homicide? that's right, not too many ... it all comes down to whether a citizen is going to step forward and say "I know something"



last thing .... Tucker Carlson ... the reporter, did a piece about the quality of hiring in the D.C. police Dept. FOr the life of me, I can't find the article. Long story short - the hiring standards went so low to get these dummies through the academy that the States Attorneys out there had to drop homicide case because they could not make heads or tails of the reports .... got to find that article ....

2/21/2012 08:10:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is nothing new really. Any clearance in 2012 regardless of the year the incident occurred is going to be put to 2012's numbers. The clearance would not go on say 2010's bottom line because no one cares about past years.

And really...who gives a shit when it is cleared as long it is cleared. A better question would be why is the clearance rate low? Several reasons. The detectives are waiting for DNA and ISP Lab results that take many many months to receive. Locating any and all witnesses who are obstinate at best or flat out refuse at worse is another reason. This along with the foot dragging by the Cook County Felony Review Unit's ball busting, mind numbingly moronic, Deputies is another reason more murders are not cleared.

Let's not forget the manpower issue either. Homicide Investigations have no continuity because the detectives do not stay on the investigation uninterrupted because they may get another incident.

Any last but certainly not least is the new cottage industry in Chicago by certain university professors along with certain law firms that turn CONVICTED MURDERERS into millionaires with the help of Anita Alvarez'absolute refusal to retry anyone. She is complicit with these firms ability to hook the City of Chicago and the detectives for major punitive damages. This is made possible by the private law firms paying witnesses to flip testimony several years after the conviction leaving ONLY the City and the detectives culpable. I challenge anyone to show one witness ever charged with perjury after they have testified in a court of law. The last time I can recall were the witnesses from Mike Ceriale's murder.

You will notice that no mention of videotaping of Homicide suspects is listed as the cause of the low clearance rate. That is because videotaping detectives doing their job was a huge blow to the defendant and his attorney. Any detective worth his salt did not give a fuck if he was being videotaped because it has no effect on the job he was doing all along.

This is why the videotape is not often used or only certain parts of it are used during trial. There is no more allegation of beating, starving, coercion, or any other fantasy the defendants attorney could bring. This forced attorneys to flip and pay witnesses off to recant their SWORN testimony without fear of reprisal.

But not for long...

2/21/2012 08:16:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And,of the 57% "solved" how many of those are botched????

2/21/2012 08:28:00 AM  
Anonymous Hot Pursuit said...

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.......Crime is down...we are in control....
The Great Oz has spoken!!!

That's how we do it here!!

2/21/2012 09:39:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just sayin...

That is how we do it here. Nothing new.

2/21/2012 09:46:00 AM  
Anonymous Sergeant Frank Drebbin, Detective Lieutenant Police Squad said...

It reminds me of The Naked Gun when George Kennedy told Leslie Nielsen that "there's a 50% chance of Nordberg making a full recovery, but there's only a 10% chance of that happening."

2/21/2012 10:47:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Data manipulation"?

Its just out and out lies! Thas it. The public has no way of checking the numbers, nor do they care. So fuck-it, why not bullshit them into thinking we're doing a good job. This shit sounds like the j-fraud years.

On the other hand: Dont think for a second that these bullshit numbers wont be used AGAINST us! Come contract time, you think Rahm wont reveal some of the "real" numbers to the public in order to make us look like we are greedy?

2/21/2012 11:23:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Reminds me of a recent news story -- it seems that more and more kids have autism. It's gotten to the point that it's frightening -- so the shrinks "redefined" autism in the latest edition of "DSM," the major textbook they use, narrowing the definition.

There!

Fedgov is also chewing over the definition of "homeless" again, trying to get that embarrassing figure down as well.

We used to pour steel in this country; now it has come to this.

A nation of the poor and the driven-crazy, ministered to -- squeamishly and at arms' length, it is true -- by a growing army of highly-paid "Social Service Administrators" and the like.

Technical superiority has given way to the great arts of statistic-bending and grant-application-writing.

"Paper can take anything." -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

2/21/2012 12:05:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whatta ya expect, the Real Police have all Left the Building.

2/21/2012 02:34:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Back in the day Chicago did have a solve rate in the 90's because detectives were allowed to do their job. Times have changed and this is the mess that we have in our streets today.

2/21/2012 03:12:00 AM

they can still do the Job, many are just unequipped mentally to be Detectives. Only about 1 out of 4 is actually competent in what they do. Check their Clearance Rates if you don't believe me.

2/21/2012 02:36:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL! Just remember...

"Figures lie and Liars figure"

Garry "Pinocchio" McCarthy and Rahm "I cannot tell the truth" Emanual

2/21/2012 03:00:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

they can still do the Job, many are just unequipped mentally to be Detectives. Only about 1 out of 4 is actually competent in what they do. Check their Clearance Rates if you don't believe me.

2/21/2012 02:36:00 PM

McLiar is that you again ?
grab a whiskey and water and go to bed, you have a comstat meeting tomorrow.

2/21/2012 05:13:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When it comes to fudging stats, it looks like you now CAN hide a murder, or at least make it seem like you won't get away with it.

What a novel idea.

2/21/2012 06:57:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wait til McNutty and Rahm learn these statistical lies..... crime won't just be down it might be non-existent!!
Figures lie and liars figure.

2/21/2012 07:24:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Compstat done struck D.C. too!

2/22/2012 03:48:00 AM  

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