When Missouri City Police Department officials saw the first segment of the “Crime in Suburbia” story aired on KHOU Channel 11 last week, they were shocked and confused to see their city’s property crime rate reported as being higher than the City of Houston.
In the report, Missouri City was described as having one of the highest crime rates of the areas covered in the investigation.
To view UCR crime data from area cities, click here.
According to e-mails obtained through an open records request by FortBendNow, despite warnings from Missouri City Police Captain John Bailey that the methodology used in compiling the television report’s statistics had to have been flawed, KHOU still ran the second of the two-part series ran that night.
“Maybe you should look at the DPS web sites to check your data,” wrote Bailey to 11 News reporter Dave Fehling on May 21, prior to the airing of the second part of the series. “I don’t know what these people looked at or included but it is clearly misleading or wrong.”
According to Channel 11’s report, the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a program of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. and the Missouri School of Journalism, compiled the data supplied by the cities involved and came up with the comparisons.
“We do not know the methodology that was used to create that report, and without the methodology, we cannot replicate what they have done,” said Bailey.
FortBendNow contacted NICAR in an attempt to discover how the data was used, but so far has not received a comment from the organization.
Without knowing what numbers or methodology NICAR used, it is impossible to know how the agency compiled their list of “safest cities,” but the Missouri City Police Department theorizes the organization used Incident Based Reporting when compiling the numbers for Missouri City, rather than the nationally-accepted standard of Uniform Crime Reporting.
UCR is the reporting method used both for the FBI’s Annual Crime Report and the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Crime in Texas annual report. Law enforcement agencies are required by law to report UCR data yearly, and it is the most commonly used data when comparing crime among cities. Not all cities, including the City of Sugar Land, collect IBR data.
Bailey said that MCPD collects IBR statistics that are useful for internal planning, but cannot be accurately compared to UCR crime reporting.
In an e-mail sent today to Missouri City Homeowners Associations, Missouri City Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald said, “In summary, the labeling of Missouri City as a “high crime city” was grossly inaccurate. A fair comparison of Missouri City crime data (using a standard UCR format) to the other cities in Channel 11’s report reveals that Missouri City has the lowest crime rate per capita amongst cities in Fort Bend County with populations of 50,000 to 100,000, and the second lowest crime rate per capita of all the cities in their report. Our data and methodology are supported, and readily available for review. We presented this data to Channel 11 reporters, but received no indication that they would reassess their presentation.”
According to DPS’s 2009 Crime in Texas Report, Missouri City reported a total of 1,418 “Part 1” crimes, which include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. Missouri City showed an increase of 3.4 percent from 2008.
In contrast, the City of Sugar Land – which was touted as one of the safest cities in the Channel 11 segment – reported 1,967 Part 1 crimes, an increase of 5.4 percent over 2008.
Bailey said the city will no longer release IBR statistics unless asked specifically for them.
“The police department will no longer be sending IBR data out to keep a fiasco like this from occurring again,” said Bailey. “Unless someone specifically requests IBR, we will be sending UCR data only. This is a lesson learned for us.”
Requesters for information city crime reports must be provided! Or
find out under your public information act; http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/og_training.shtml
I’ve seen too many fail to comply with these requests or only partially comply. It then leaves it in the requestors hands to pursue it further often costing them thousands in legal fees to engage in the delaying subterfuge.
Too bad the system is so badly broken.
I have a hard time beleiving crime is down in any area, period. Of course Mo City and Sugar Land crime gets reported more often, but I don’t mind. I would rather know about it than not.
There is a rule in business I go by… it’s not always the percentage of dollars you make it’s the amount of dollars you make. Same with crime and taxes. Don’t tell me the percentage, tell me the amount.
Yes cons1 frequency matters much more in fast growing areas. Rates can be easily manipulated as we have seen in recent years and reports. For instance the story above includes rate increases of 3.4 and 5.4 respectively from one study while the IBR analysis apparently provides much more details and a more accurate picture. Perhaps why some cities use it for planning purposes and don’t release it without a formal TPIA request.
http://www.khou.com/news/Crime-How-Houstons-Suburbs-Rank-94483884.html
The suspicious looking predators are our elected officials… Hello… Let’s have the “real” crime reports! The ones that show that all taxpayers are being robbed blind.
That’s catchy missive. I like that. It does seem anything goes these days with many of our elected officials. Perhaps that is why so many voted against the current DA during the primaries.
Gotta sell those new homes you know in those new communities! What’s public safety anyway?
What’s public safety, in reality is if the homes are are built within a HOA community — homeowners upon bank approval of course, or rental property approval — is handed their HOA Bible of Commandments” so to speak. I briefly worked at one First Colony HOA administrative office once…never more! It’s sad how depressing the anger in the voices of the many who knew full well what they were buying into.
Public Safety, is a HUGE asset in any community… Granted, but that’s why it “pays” to spend precious time with ine’s family to discuss with each other their financial letter of obligation one receives with their bill to pay homeowners dues in January. Accountabilites as to each fiscal line item is included. Should a homeowner fall short of any financial obligation, there’s no one to blame but that homeowner, or the loss of their job in today’s employment market; therefore it then becomes legally only an issue between that “homeowner”, bank (mortgage company) & HOA attorney’s –and yes that is true for all HOA communities, not just across Texas, but California & Florida too!
Looks like Bailey made some further changes to the original quote in the story. Very typical of officials. Earlier it looked like he was claiming that the city uses IBR data because it is “truer and clearer” and now the revised copy says, “Bailey said that MCPD collects IBR statistics that are useful for internal planning, but cannot be accurately compared to UCR crime reporting.”–They must have called back to continue these deceptive shenanigans because the report now has been edited. Needless to say it doesn’t change the fact that they use the more important data set for planning for crime but use another, the UCR, for public perception.
It is interesting to see the city claim too that you can’t compare UCR with IBR data, when clearly KHOU did not compare the two. This is just more wordsmithing meant to confuse the public.
It reminds me of the use of ETJ population in the MC UCR-FBI 2007 & 2008 self-reporting that we read about. This is done to increase the sample population size to qualify them for the 75k+ category. It gives off the impression of a decreased crime rate by dumping 10-13k non-residents not serviced by the city into the sample. The ETJ is serviced by the Sheriff’s Office not the city police force. This causes the rates to appear lower than they actually are.
Looks like public perception is all they really are concerned about and not factual information & public safety.
Good coverage though anyway. I believe this is what they call damage control.-It looks like they just drew more attention to themselves trying to cover this up further.
1trueconservative, nice missive you have worth seriously thinking about, but isn’t this pretty true in life? Public perceptions not only in business, but marriage too? Partnerships, although here we are speaking of tearing it all apart to begin the understanding of how all the elements or components exist without one or another. What I’m trying to say is this: is this truly the mist important element in your life? If it is, and why shouldn’t it be– we all wish for our neighbors and family safety, but golly.. nothing beats keeping your neighbors informed of suspicious looking predator- types hanging around up to no good.