True view of crime in city is crucial
A new way to employ how homicides are tallied is under review by the Memphis Police Department.
The reason, ostensibly, is to make the numbers more closely conform with what is called the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System, or TIBRS, gathered by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
If all the TIBRS homicide reporting exceptions were followed, the city’s final tally would have been fewer than 200.
“When we look at 2016 and the 228 homicides, not all 228 of those meet the TIBRS definition of murder. What we’re considering moving forward is reporting as close as possible to the TIBRS definition,” MPD Lt. Col. Don Crowe told The Commercial Appeal’s Jody Callahan last week.
Given the heat that Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and police Director Michael Rallings have taken over the record-breaking homicide tally for 2016 and the 30 homicides this year, this sounds more like a public relations move to cast the city in a more favorable light regarding violent crime.
Strickland said he was familiar with the discussions, but had no opinion on the change until it is formally presented to him. “I know a little bit about it. In general we count more deaths toward our homicides than other jurisdictions,” he said. “I’ll wait until (the department) comes back with a proposal. It’s just talk now. And very little talk.”
That is good to know. The violent crime problem in this city is serious. To make any official move to mask the problem by manipulating the numbers would be an extreme disservice to Memphis residents and the entities working diligently to reduce violent crime.
This city does not need that kind of opaqueness in its communications with the public.
The MPD counts, for example, justifiable homicides in its total; TIBRS does not. Removing those 19 from 2016 would reduce the official tally to 209. TIBRS also does not include negligent manslaughter, which Memphis does.
Also, TIBRS counts a homicide in the year the incident happened, not when the ruling was made that an act was a homicide.
And, according to Callahan’s story, TIBRS does not include fetal deaths, despite a change in state law in 2012 that mandates that the death of any fetus — no matter if it could survive outside the womb — also must be ruled a homicide. At least four fetuses were included in Memphis’ 2016 tally.
Memphis police and some of its crime-reduction partners consistently complain about the inconsistent way Part 1 crimes (aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder and robbery) are reported by different jurisdictions across the nation, which makes the city’s crime problem look worse than other large cities.
They have a point. But the true picture door swings both ways.
Police brag that some 70 percent of the homicides are solved. That percentage would be lower if the justifiable and negligent manslaughter homicides, where the assailants usually still are on the scene, were not counted.
The TBI says it only counts murder and non-negligent manslaughter when calculating the clearance rate.
Memphians deserve a full, transparent picture of the city’s crime problem, especially regarding violent crime. Any attempt to massage the numbers to make the city look better should be swiftly jettisoned by the mayor.