Monday, May 28, 2012

Policing The Police Numbers

Last week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel issued an extensive report regarding the way the Milwaukee Police Department categorizes crimes.  Their finding was that hundreds of cases were listed as less serious crimes than what they should have been.

Radio squawkers and right wing bloggers used this as grounds to attack Police Chief Ed Flynn and his boss, Tom Barrett.  Even Scott Walker, who one would think would not want to draw attention to cooked numbers given his made up jobs report, used this as a weapon against Barrett.

However, the police numbers that the paper reported are incomplete and could use some policing themselves.

Erik Gunn, writing for Milwaukee Magazine,  points out that the MJS story, and hence those that are using this story as a squawking point, is missing some vital information itself.

One has to wonder if the paper, which stated that it took them a year to get the information together to write their story, might have intentionally left out this information to give ammunition against Barrett or whether their reporting as just gotten that sloppy.

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