About 14,000 serious assaults were estimated to have been misclassified as minor offenses by the LAPD in a recent eight-year period, artificially lowering the city’s crime levels, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.
With the incidents counted correctly, violent crime in the city was 7 percent higher than the LAPD reported in the period from 2005 to fall 2012, and the number of serious assaults was 16 percent higher, the analysis found. When presented with the findings, top LAPD officials acknowledged the department makes errors and said they were working to improve the accuracy of crime data reporting, The Times reported this morning.
“We know this can have a corrosive effect on the public’s trust of our reporting,” Assistant Chief Michel Moore, who oversees the LAPD’s system for tracking crime, told the newspaper. “That’s why we are committed to … eliminating as much of the error as possible.”
The misclassified cases often involved attacks that resulted in serious injuries. The Los Angeles Police Department misclassified an estimated 14,000 serious assaults from 2005 to 2012. Even with the errors factored in, serious assaults and violent crime still showed a decline.�
The errors occurred during a time when the LAPD was reporting major drops in crime across the city. The Times analysis found the misclassified cases were not numerous enough to alter the overall downward trend.
Still, the findings are a mark against a department long viewed as a national leader in using data to help deploy officers and set crime-fighting targets, according to The Times.
The findings follow a Times investigation last year that examined LAPD crime data from a 12-month period ending in the fall of 2013 and found widespread errors in the way serious assaults were classified. In response to that report, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck acknowledged problems with the department’s process for recording crimes. He launched a series of changes aimed at improving internal accountability and the training officers receive on how to classify crimes.
