Pubdate: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 Source: New York Times Contact: http://nytimes.com Author: Fox Butterfield, The New York Times PRESSURE TO MANIPULATE CRIME DATA WORRIES POLICE PHILADELPHIA -- 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 have led to incidents in several cities in which commanders have manipulated crime data. While Austin police say they're confident local crime statistics are accurate, there have been charges of falsely reporting crime statistics in Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta and Boca Raton, Fla., resulting in the resignation or demotion of high-ranking police commanders, this year. In Boca Raton, for example, a police captain, with the knowledge of the police chief, systematically downgraded property crimes such as burglaries to vandalism, trespassing or missing property, reducing the city's felony rate by almost 11 percent in 1997. Experts say they believe these incidents don't mean that the nationwide drop in crime since 1992 is illusory. But they are beginning to question whether politicians, the media and the public should attach so much importance to the regular release of crime figures. In Philadelphia, the city has had to withdraw its crime figures from the FBI's national system for 1996, 1997 and at least the first half of 1998 because of underreporting, downgrading serious crimes into less serious incidents and sloppiness. Philadelphia's size -- it accounts for 2 percent of all slayings in the United States -- means the removal of its numbers could skew the crime rate for the whole nation. But Harlan McEwan, deputy assistant FBI director, said he was confident the bureau had statistical methods to adjust the national rate even without Philadelphia's figures. The 1997 crime figures will be released this fall. Gil Kerlikowske, the former police commissioner of Buffalo, N.Y., said the pressure on police to prove their performance through reduced crime figures, with promotions and pay raises increasingly dependent on good numbers, "creates a new area for police corruption and ethics." Kerlikowske suggested there has been too much focus on the eight major crimes counted by the FBI in its crime index: the violent crimes of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault along with the property crimes of burglary, theft, stolen cars and arson. "There is too little focus on lesser crimes, which are not counted by the FBI," Kerlikowske said, "like drug sales, prostitution and graffiti, which are more meaningful to the overall quality of life because there is so much more of them." An Austin police official said Sunday she is confident local crime numbers reflected reality. "The number of crimes reported, we feel very strongly, are just right on target," said Sue Barton, director of research and planning for the Austin Police Department. Before sending its crime reports to the FBI and the Texas Department of Public Safety, the department checks its numbers against reports that track crimes by geographic area. Any discrepancies can be checked, Barton said. In addition, in 1995 Austin became the first large U.S. city to establish a crime-reporting system categorized by incident. DPS and FBI experts helped Austin set up the system, providing extra scrutiny of the department's procedures, Barton said. In several of the cases that have plagued other cities, police commanders have downgraded felonies such as aggravated assault and burglary, which are reported to the FBI, to misdemeanors that are not reported to the bureau. Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney discovered in July that Capt. Daniel Castro, the West Philadelphia district commander, had exaggerated reports of crime reduction. Castro reported an 80 percent drop in serious crime in the past year. A review found that Castro had downgraded many robberies, burglaries and thefts to cases of "missing property." Castro was removed from his command. In New York, Kenneth Donohue, head of the police department's transportation bureau, was forced to resign this year over allegations of a scheme to reclassify incidents on the subway as street crimes. Police Commissioner Howard Safir said the manipulation had gone on for years and had underestimated crime in the subways by about 20 percent. The Atlanta City Council and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are investigating accusations by a deputy police chief that two other deputy chiefs pressured police to write off unsolved crimes and misclassify violent crimes as nonviolent when preparing the city's crime statistics for 1996, the year the Olympics were there. In Boca Raton, tips from police officers led to an investigation by the Palm Beach County state attorney's office last month that found that Capt. Jim Duke had systematically downgraded felonies, mostly property crimes, to misdemeanors "for the direct purpose of not having to report these crimes" to the FBI. During 1997, Duke, who was forced to resign, downgraded 385 felonies, 11 percent of the city's total of 3,635 serious crimes. In one case originally labeled a burglary, a thief stole $5,000 in jewelry and did more than $25, 000 in damage, the prosecutor said, but Duke reclassified the case as vandalism. - ---