Just compared my city's crime stats from the police site vs the FBI's own numbers for 2023, and they told two different stories | Debate the Data - Vivisector
Just compared my city's crime stats from the police site vs the FBI's own numbers for 2023, and they told two different stories
The police page showed a 12% drop while the FBI table for the same year showed it basically flat, all because one counted reports taken at the counter and the other only counted cases that got a report number. Anybody else run into this with local stats, and which source do you trust more?
I ran into the same thing with my city a couple years back, the police site said crime was down 8% but the FBI data had it up slightly. Turns out the local page was only counting calls that turned into full reports, not every call for service. I usually go with the FBI numbers since they're at least using the same rules across cities, even if they're a bit behind.