Chicago Brought Its Crime Stats Down the Old-Fashioned Way: Fraud

Here at PJ Media, we know a thing or two about faked crime statistics. Until we reported on the antics of the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department on the Texas-Mexico border, the local and state media — never mind federal investigators — wouldn’t touch it. From conversations with several law enforcement officers not connected with Hidalgo County while working on that series, I learned something that bothers me still: Law enforcement agencies all over the country fake their crime statistics, and the federal government encourages them to do so. They falsify their statistics to make them look worse in order to attract federal grant money, and they continue falsifying their stats to make them look better to keep the federal grant money rolling in. They falsify statistics to make the sheriff or police chief look good, to serve the politics of gun control, and other reasons.

A big city police department like Chicago’s will have those motivations to fake statistics, plus others, notably that the city has a big-name mayor who wants higher office, that the city’s crime-ridden image harms the national gun control crusade, and that its image can hurt local industries like tourism. Ultimately, its image even hurts the president who claims it as one of his homes.

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