Quote Originally Posted by OneGuy67 View Post
Interesting thought, but false logic. The statistics you want to rely on come from reports generated by the police. Its called NIBRS. Its a bunch of codes that every report is broken down into for statistical purposes. Each agency reports them to the CBI, who compiles them for the state and then sends the results to the FBI.

So, if no reports are generated, there is no crime reported, although I'm sure crime is occuring. Also, those reports and statistics can be massaged to show an increase or decrease in a specific crime based on how they are reported. Do you have a sexual assault or an unlawful sexual contact? Depending upon how the case is initially written up, it could go either way. How about A DUI or a DUI associated with another crime, like vehicular assault. Only one gets reported, although there may be multiple crimes invovled. Do you put down as the primary crime the most serious or the causation, or the most minimalist?

The big ones obviously are the Class I felonies: Murder, Sexual Assault, etc. What if you have a number of Sunday morning alcohol related regretted-the-previous-nights-sexual-encounter and report a sexual assault? Sexual assault occurs when the one or more of the parties are unable to give informed consent. What is informed consent and where does that stop when alcohol is consumed? Does she need to be falling down drunk to not be able to give consent or is one beer sufficient to be unable to given informed consent? There isn't a standard or a set limit. And in that example, it seems to fall on the side of the female. Isn't the alcohol consumed by the male party also inhibiting his ability to give informed consent to sex?

So, you as the detective, what do you do? You got a female victim reporting an assault, although you have no evidence of an assault, other than sexual contact and the male party admits to sexual contact, but insists it was consensual? The question of informed consent is out the window as both were intoxicated and one or the other shows you receipts from the previous evening. Do you arrest the male and put him in jail on the word of the female, even though the chances are that the DA will not go forward with a prosecution, or do you not arrest and risk the female going to the media and crying that no one is willing to listen to her story of rape. AND...to bring it back to the discussion, what do you code this for NIBRS reporting?

Pancho, you sound like someone really wanting to hear and debate on an intellectual level. It is nice to have the debate and thought, not the bashing. If you ever wanted to meet and discuss these issues one on one, let me know. We can even invite others and have a really good discussion!
Please refer back to the first post in this thread; the study cited clearly shows that there wasn't a significant change in reported crimes. If it was as you said (that crimes were simply not reported due to there being no police on duty) then there would have been a 100% drop in reported crime rates.