Ogden’s Crime Rate Has Decreased, But Hype Is Misleading

A new analysis of 25 years of crime statistics

By Dan Schroeder

Ogden’s crime statistics have been in the news again lately, mentioned in connection with the departures of Mayor Godfrey and Chief Greiner.

When Greiner was dismissed, the city issued a press release giving him credit for reducing Ogden’s crime rate by 33% between 1999 and 2009, “almost 50% more than the national average for the same period.” The Standard-Examiner had already printed the 33% statistic on November 27 in a list of Godfrey’s accomplishments, and printed it again on December 29 in an article about Greiner. The Salt Lake Tribune similarly reported that there was a 33% drop in Ogden’s crime rate between 1997 and 2009.

It’s been more than three years since this blog took a thorough look at Ogden’s crime statistics, so an update is in order. How has Ogden’s crime rate changed during the tenure of Godfrey and Greiner, and over the longer term? Is the 33% statistic correct?

These questions might seem relevant only to historians who want to assess the Godfrey-Greiner legacy. But the answers could also be of interest to potential clients of Godfrey’s new consulting firm, who have a legitimate interest in knowing his actual crime-fighting record. It’s also important that we not hold the new mayor, and the new police chief, to an unrealistic standard.

Fortunately, there’s quite a bit more data available now than there was three years ago. Of course, we now have data for three additional years: 2008, 2009, and 2010. (Data for 2011 won’t be available for several more months.) In addition, the FBI recently put some older data on its web site, available through its new UCR Data Tool. Finally, with the 2010 Census behind us, we now have a more reliable figure for Ogden’s population (which comes into calculating the crime rate, e.g., the number of crimes per 1000 residents).

Before getting into the numbers, I should explain that when we read about crime statistics in the U.S., those statistics almost always come from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, which dates back to 1929. The advantage of the UCR system is that it is well defined and widely used. But unfortunately, it counts only certain types of crimes: so-called “violent crimes” (murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault), and “property crimes” (burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft). The UCR statistics omit all other crimes including simple assault, fraud, drug crimes, traffic crimes, and so on. (Arson is sometimes included as a property crime in UCR statistics, but is not included in the data used for this article. This omission has very little effect on the overall numbers and trends.)

The UCR data can also be inaccurate or misleading in other ways. Local law enforcement agencies gather and report the data, and these agencies may not always interpret the FBI guidelines consistently. Some agencies might even misreport the data for political reasons. Even if the agencies’ reporting practices are perfect, they cannot report crimes that citizens never report to the police. And of course, the data tell us nothing about the causes of crime and of crime trends, which are extremely complex.

With these limitations in mind, here is a graph of Ogden’s UCR crime rate that goes back to the earliest available online data (1985). The rates for Utah and for the entire U.S. are shown for comparison.

The most striking feature of the graph is Ogden’s steadily decreasing crime rate over the entire time period shown. The occasional increases in the crime rate appear to be mere short-term fluctuations, superimposed on the strong decreasing trend. The Utah and U.S. crime rates have also been decreasing steadily, though only since about 1995 and 1991, respectively.

But the decrease has not been as steep as Mayor Godfrey and the newspapers have implied. If we average over the short-term fluctuations, the decrease from 1999 to 2009 was only about 24%, not 33%. Similarly, the decrease from 1999 to 2006 was only 17%, not 23% as Godfrey claimed during his 2007 reelection campaign. You can, of course, obtain either higher or lower numbers by cherry-picking the starting and ending dates to take advantage of short-term fluctuations. Perhaps coincidentally, if you look at the long-term trend since Greiner became police chief in 1995, the decrease is almost exactly 33%.

Furthermore, the decrease since 1995 has been entirely consistent with state and national trends. For example, between 1999 and 2009 the Utah and U.S. crime rates decreased by 30% and 19%, respectively, compared to 24% for Ogden (according to the long-term trend). While the Ogden Police Department obviously deserves a great deal of credit for working hard to keep crime rates down, there is no evidence that Ogden is anomalous in any way or that the mayor and police chief have somehow worked miracles. The only possibly significant discrepancy between Ogden’s crime rate and the state and national trends was actually in the late 1980s, when Ogden’s crime rate decreased while the Utah and U.S. crime rates were increasing.

The graph above also shows that Ogden’s crime rate has remained significantly higher than the state and national rates. But this difference is entirely expected, because crime rates are almost always higher in cities than in suburbs or rural areas. There are far more opportunities to commit crimes in cities, where many suburban residents regularly go for work, shopping, and entertainment.

The vast majority of UCR crimes are thefts of various types. Here is a breakdown of Ogden’s UCR crimes:

To a first approximation, the UCR “crime” rate is really just the larceny rate—with significant additional contributions from burglary and motor vehicle theft.

To get beyond this focus on theft, analysts often quote just the “violent” crime rate. This statistic is dominated by aggravated assaults and robberies, with a smaller contribution from forcible rapes and a still smaller contribution from murders and nonnegligent manslaughters. Here is a graph of Ogden’s violent crime data since 1985, again showing the Utah and U.S. data for comparison:

The most striking aspect of the Ogden data is its increasing volatility in recent years, with large upward and downward fluctuations. Any long-term trend is hard to discern: One could argue either that the overall trend has been flat throughout this time period, or that there was a gradual upward trend for the first decade followed by an even more gradual downward trend since the mid-1990s. The state-wide data do show a gentle rising and falling pattern of this type, while the national violent crime rate has risen and fallen rather dramatically (with a somewhat earlier peak).

While Ogden’s violent crime rate was below the national average through 1997, it has been above the national average most years since 1998. But this is because the national average has fallen—not because Ogden’s violent crime rate has risen.

In any case, we again find no evidence of any miraculous decrease in Ogden’s crime rate. The sharp decline in violent crime since 2007 has mostly just canceled out a sharp increase during the preceding three years.

There is one more law enforcement statistic that Ogden residents have occasionally heard over the years: the number of new police officers recently hired. For example, in 2007 Mayor Godfrey claimed that Ogden had hired 18 new police offers during his first two terms, and promised to soon hire six more. But data from the FBI web site (which ultimately come from the Ogden Police Department) do not support these numbers. Instead, the size of Ogden’s police force has grown at the same average rate as the total population, rising from 120 in 1999 to 131 in 2010, with a peak of 135 in 2008.

Finally, a technical note on population: Different agencies have used different estimates of Ogden’s population in non-Census years, and some of these estimates have shown unrealistic year-to-year fluctuations. Instead of using these contemporaneous estimates, I have retroactively estimated the annual population changes by making linear interpolations between Census years. As a result, I have eliminated a few spurious fluctuations in apparent crime rate statistics that were caused by fluctuating population estimates. The following graph compares the population estimates used here to the more erratic population estimates that are found on the FBI UCR web site:

For those who would like to see all the numbers that went into the graphs in this article, you can download the full spreadsheet here. Meanwhile, comments are invited from one and all.

Dan's Diary: The Probability of Zero

A short collegiate-level lecture on applied probability theory and statistics, delivered to you entirely tuition-free

For a little topical change of pace this morning, we'd like to highlight the most recent and fantastic Dan's Diary blog article, which spins off Sunday's Standard-Examiner story, (bearing the the headline, "Killings down in Ogden"). Within this new below-linked DD blog article, frequent WCF contributor Dan S. examines the full range of "possible" and "law enforcement-claimed" causes of the SE's reported "unprecedented drop in Ogden killings" under the microscope of "Poisson statistics". All-in-all, it's a pretty enlightening read. We'll start off by incorporating Dan's tantalizing lead paragraphs:

Good news: Ogden has had zero homicides so far in 2011 (probably).

Bad news: Journalists don’t understand statistics (still).

“Killings down in Ogden,” proclaimed the headline across the top of Sunday’s front page, with a great big zero on one side. Pending a final ruling on whether a fatal July shooting was accidental, Ogden has probably gone for nine months without a murder or automobile homicide. This isn’t just great news; it’s historic.

The article falls short, though, in discussing the possible causes of this unprecedented drop in killings.

You can read the rest of Dr. Schroeder's highly-instructive Dan's Diary article here:

• The Probability of Zero

Count your blessings, gentle readers. It ain't every day you get a short collegiate-level lecture on applied probability theory and statistics from one of the Top Dogs in the mighty WSU Physics Department, delivered entirely tuition-free.

Standard-Examiner: OPD Awaits New Crime-fighting Tools

A crime fighting, aerial surveilance blimp for Ogden? Oh the Huge Manatee!

Despite the fact that Boss Godfrey's aerial survellance blimp has become a side-splitting punchline on both the local and national levels, The Standard-Examiner still continues this morning, (with an apparent completely straight face), to assist the administration in flogging this idea as a legitimate crime-fighting tool:

• OPD awaits new crime-fighting tools

Interesting crime statistics side-story emerges from this morning's Scott Schwebke writeup, too:

In 2010, violent crime incidents, including homicide, rape, robbery and assault, in east-central Ogden decreased 24 percent. Property crimes, such as burglary and auto theft rose by 20 percent over those recorded in 2009, according to a newly issued CRU report.

A crime fighting, aerial surveilance blimp for Ogden, to respond to the disturbing 2010 uptick in property crimes?

The "Ogdenburg"

Please feel free to continue to discuss this topic, or alternatively to consider this an open-topic thread.

Standard-Examiner Editorial: OUR VIEW: Big Brother Beckons

Although we continue to question whether Boss Godfrey's Crime fighting efforts have been even marginally commendable, wethinks the Standard otherwise gets it exactly right.

We'll cite this morning's Standard-Examiner editorial as another instance of an editorial board that's "firing on all cylinders." We've all had a grand time poking fun at Boss Godfrey's "Clouseau I" Crime Blimp, but now the SE shifts the focus to the dark and creepy side of Boss Godfrey's most recent crackpot obsession:

• OUR VIEW: Big Brother beckons

Here's the SE's insightful closing and summary paragraph:

This is overkill to the 'nth degree. And it will get worse. It's our experience that government overbearance creeps up on society bit by bit. Worse, we accept it little by little. Where is the evidence that Ogden's current efforts to fight crime, many of which have been commendable, are so unsuccessful that we need constant surveillance?

Although we continue to question whether Boss Godfrey's crime fighting efforts have been even marginally commendable, wethinks the Standard otherwise gets it exactly right.

Standard-Examiner: External Security Cameras Coming to 'Real Time Crime Center'

Once again it's proven true that "the only difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys."

Scary. Talk about your Big Brother, it's 'A Brave New World.'

Bernie Allen, local defense attorney
External security cameras coming to 'real time crime center'
February 26, 2011

We're not taking control of anyone's camera system. We just want to be sure it's recording.

Jon Greiner, Ogden City Chief of Gestapo Police
External security cameras coming to 'real time crime center'
February 26, 2011

I wont lie. At the beginning, I thought this is a little hard to believe. But after meeting with UCAID, it's obvious this is well-thought-out. I'm really impressed.

Jess McLellan, IT project coordinator
External security cameras coming to 'real time crime center'
February 26, 2011

Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?

Dr. Evil, criminal mastermind
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
1997

First we heard about Boss Godfrey's "crime fighting blimp"; and now our morning Standard-Examiner edition breathlessly announces this totally boffo anti-crime revelation:

OGDEN -- Attempting a police omniscience seen in only about 20 U.S. cities, the Ogden Police Department is gearing up for a "real time crime center" to be operational soon after its Crime Blimp launches.
The center hopes to eventually be linked with the thousands of private and government security cameras around town, including the city's own inventory of some 200 cameras.

Read the full laughably gut-busting Tim Gurrister story here:

• External security cameras coming to 'real time crime center'

Hmmmm... Once again it's proven true (according to the old ax) that "the only difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys."

Surveillance Blimp Attracts National Attention

Mayor finally puts Ogden on map.

By Dan Schroeder

After eleven years of complaining that “we're not on the map,” Mayor Godfrey has finally found a way to attract national attention to Ogden. And it's not just the attention of niche publications for skiers and backpackers; Ogden is now on Yahoo News, CBS, Reuters, and dozens of blogs spanning the political spectrum from Talking Points Memo to Free Republic.

What brought our new-found fame? It wasn't an urban gondola; nor was it indoor surfing or skydiving; nor was it pyromaniac urban renewal schemes; nor even chasing police officers’ wives.

No, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the mayoral brainstorm that has finally put Ogden on the map is none other than... The Blimp!

Here’s what they said about it on today’s episode of the NPR news quiz Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me (segment Panel Round Two, starting at 3:10):

Host Peter Sagal: Tom, the mayor of Ogden, Utah has a plan to fight crime. He’s going to unleash the awesome power of what? (In the skies.)

Panelist Tom Bodett: Oh, um, seagulls.

Sagal: No.

Bodett: Oh, camera-toting seagulls.

Sagal: No.

Bodett: Uh, something more predatory—hawks, perhaps.

Sagal: No.

Bodett: Uh, can I have a hint?

Sagal: It’ll be a GOOD YEAR for law enforcement. Really he’s just FLOATING this idea.

Bodett: Oh (chuckles)... blimps!

Sagal: Yes! Crime-fighting blimps, high above Ogden. Mayor Matthew Godfrey of Ogden noticed high-crime cities had one thing in common: no blimps in the skies. There must be a connection. Ogden officials hope that flying an unmanned dirigible around town will aid in surveillance and crime prevention. Criminals will be like, “Hey, let’s steal a TV... Wait what’s that? It's a blimp! Oh, it must be the year 1917; TVs haven't been invented yet; let’s do something else.”... The high-speed chases though, with a blimp, would be very disappointing. Every time the local anchors get excited they’re like, “And the blimp is in pursuit! Oh, the humanity. Looks like the crime blimp has got them this time! Oh, the humanity.”

Salt Lake Tribune: State Agency Pulls Crime Report Over Bad Data

So many mistakes in the crime report, that the crime rate and the trend reported [down] had to be hastily withdrawn by the issuing agency

By Curmudgeon

The SL Trib is running a very interesting story this morning. Here's the headline in the print edition, which is also a link to the full story:

• "You just thought crime was down."

The headline on the on-line story reads State Agency Pulls Crime Report Over Bad Data."

And the lede:

The Department of Public Safety recently reported that violent crime, car thefts and juvenile arrests all dropped dramatically in 2009 from the previous year.

The problem is, that may not be true.

The department has pulled its preliminary report on 2009 crime statistics after realizing it published incorrect data for the previous year’s statistics, creating incorrect crime-trend comparisons.

Now please note the next paragraph. I'll bold face it for emphasis:

A Salt Lake Tribune analysis of the report released by the Bureau of Criminal Identification revealed dozens of discrepancies between the numbers in the final 2008 Crime in Utah report and the numbers in the newly released 2009 preliminary report used to generate the trend analysis.

Got that? "A Salt Lake Tribune analysis" of the numbers turned up so many mistakes in the crime report, that the crime rate and the trend reported [down] had to be hastily withdrawn by the issuing agency.

That's what good newspapers do when they get press releases from public officials. They fact check them. They analyze them. The dig into them to see if they stand up to scrutiny.

And that's what the Standard Examiner did not do with the crime stats so cavalierly tossed around by the Mayor to serve his re-election campaign in Ogden.

How long before we can expect to read, the next time Hizzonah attempts to dazzle the SE with a shower of dubious numbers a story leading "A Standard Examiner analysis of the numbers revealed that..."

Not holding my breath.

How can you operate a mid-sized urban daily in this statistics-driven age and not have on staff or on call someone with the necessary expertise to crunch numbers, to analyze statistics to see if they in fact say what a candidate or office holder claims they say?

Ogden Administration Uses Tax Dollars to Deceive Citizens

Yet another commentary that the Standard-Examiner refused to print

By Dan Schroeder

This month marks the third anniversary of an audacious fraud carried out by the Ogden City administration, paid for by Ogden City taxpayers.

In July 2007, the administration published and mailed a utility bill insert with an article loudly proclaiming that The Junction was “a good investment”. That’s a matter of opinion, of course, but the article based its claim on a fraudulent statement of the facts.

The article said the city’s “original investment” in The Junction was merely the $6 million purchase price for the property, never mentioning the additional costs of tearing down the old mall, building the Salomon Center, and so on. In fact, the city had to borrow nearly $40 million to finance The Junction, and will eventually have to pay back all of that, plus interest.

The article also “projected” that The Junction would generate over $2 million in property tax during 2007, when in fact it generated less than $150,000. This factor-of-14 error was not mere over-optimism. By July 2007 the assessed values of all the Junction parcels were known, and the actual 2007 property tax could easily have been calculated.

Finally, the article projected more than $3.2 million in Junction property tax for 2010. The actual property tax this year will be very close to $1 million. Basically, the article’s unnamed author assumed that the two undeveloped parcels at The Junction would each end up being worth as much as all the rest of The Junction put together. Even in the best economic times, that never would have happened.

A similar article making some of the same outrageous claims was published as a taxpayer-funded advertisement in the Standard-Examiner on May 31, 2007.

Again, whether The Junction is actually a good investment is a matter of opinion. Perhaps it has increased the values of nearby properties, or perhaps its intangible benefits outweigh its high cost. But the numbers that the administration used to make its case were fraudulent.

Unfortunately, this is not the only example of the administration’s use of publicly funded communications to deceive citizens.

Just two months later, in September 2007, the administration published a utility bill insert claiming that Ogden’s violent crime rate had decreased 43% between 1999 and 2006. The same claim appeared in a taxpayer-funded Standard-Examiner advertisement on August 30. When the state and federal governments later published statistics that were supposedly based on the same data, they showed no significant change in the violent crime rate.

We eventually learned the reasons for the discrepancy. First, the administration was inflating the 1999 crime rate by using an absurdly low population estimate, left over from the 1990 census. And second, the administration had inexplicably stopped including some categories of crimes in the statistics starting in 2005, even though those categories were included through 2004.

It can hardly be a coincidence that all of these dishonest communications appeared during Mayor Godfrey’s 2007 reelection campaign. And in fact, some of the same deceptions were copied directly into the mayor’s campaign mailings. Sadly, Americans have grown accustomed to politicians telling lies in campaign advertisements. But it’s a much bigger problem when they spend public tax dollars to broadcast those lies on the government’s behalf.

During the 2009 election season we saw more inappropriate uses of taxpayer-funded communications for electioneering. First the administration used the city’s public web site to prominently broadcast a verbal attack by the mayor on an incumbent City Council member who was running for reelection. Then the mayor’s office attempted to use Channel 17 to dictate the time, place, and format of a series of debates between City Council candidates.

State and local laws prohibit government officials from using public resources for political purposes. Whether these laws apply to the cases I’ve described, however, is probably open to interpretation. It’s up to the city attorney to interpret such laws, and the city attorney answers to the mayor. In fact, Ogden’s city attorney has repeatedly interpreted these very same laws to the mayor’s advantage, and to the disadvantage of his opponents.

Could the laws be clarified to reduce the city attorney’s discretion? Perhaps this type of abuse will eventually get the Utah Legislature’s attention, but I’m not holding my breath.

A better law at the local level might seem easier, but it may not be. Ogden’s City Council has adopted procedures that make it virtually impossible to pass an ordinance without the blessing of the city attorney. Again, the city attorney answers to the mayor.

The 2011 campaign season is now only a year away. If we want better laws, now is the time to pass them--before we know who the candidates will be. I hope the Ogden City Council will make this issue a priority and crack down on the unethical use of taxpayer-funded communications.

Addendum: This commentary was submitted to the Standard-Examiner earlier this month. A few days later I received a response from editorial page editor Doug Gibson indicating that it would not be published, but inviting me to submit a much shorter version as a letter to the editor. In response to a further inquiry, Mr. Gibson explained: “I don’t think the topic is fresh enough. It has been rehashed many times, including on your blog.”

How are we to interpret Mr. Gibson’s explanation? True, the topics in my commentary have been discussed many times here on Weber County Forum, and even mentioned in passing on my personal blog. But the majority of this content has never been mentioned at all in the Standard-Examiner. Are we to understand that thoroughly discussing a topic on a blog disqualifies that topic from being discussed in any detail in the local newspaper? That seems to be what Mr. Gibson is saying.

But I don’t think he’s telling the whole truth. Before 2007, the Standard-Examiner printed every guest commentary I submitted (I think there were about four). Yet during the last three years I’ve submitted seven guest commentaries, and they’ve rejected all but two. The two that they printed steered clear of any direct statements about Mayor Godfrey; the five that they rejected all pointed out facts about the mayor that the Standard-Examiner has downplayed or ignored.

Added Addendum: Now that the 2010 property assessments are available, here’s an updated version of the Junction property tax graph that I published last year:

Suspicious Men at Park: Lewdness Suspected

Front page Ogden crime news... on a slow news day

By: Monotreme

Today's front page (FRONT PAGE!) story by Scott Schwebke tickled me, but not in a good way:

• Suspicious men at park: Lewdness suspected, Ogden police increase patrols of Simmons Field

What I liked most was the delicate way he approached the subject matter:

The parking area is the predominant meeting place in Ogden for this type activity, and law officers haven't received a large number of complaints about other locations, said Police Chief Jon Greiner.

Also, while I would likely be offended and maybe even put off my feed by seeing such things, the one thing I would most definitely not be is threatened:

"The suspicious activity creates a perceived threat of their security," [Conley] said.

I'm pretty sure that males engaging in "that type activity" are not in any position -- literally -- to threaten me with a knife or gun.

If this is front page Ogden crime news, then I'm all for it.

Crime is WAY down in Ogden... Scout's Honor

Standard-Examiner publisher Lee Carter expesses his "special" Thanksgiving thanks for Ogden City's crime fighting team, Chief Greiner and Boss Godfrey

Just for sake of archival consistency, we'll highlight two items appearing in this morning's Standard-Examiner, which fall into the well-travelled Weber County Forum topic category, Godfrey the Crime Fighter.

First, the SE carries this front page Scott Schwebke story, wherein Chief Greiner pats himself on the back for a purported 23% crime reduction and then whines about Ogden's "parolee problem":

“It’s not fair to the citizens of this community,” Greiner said of the inordinate amount of parolees in the city. “It’s not fair to have to police them.”

And our readers won't want to miss this morning's Boss Godfrey guest commentary, wherein the Crime Fighter Hisself ushers himself into view, for a share of the spotlight:

I think Ogden's story is important because it tells other communities that the right plan and implementation can change the paradigm. One of the reasons I ran for this office was because a former city official told me that "you can't do anything to change crime. It has always occurred and always will."
I'm surprised at how many people really believe that, especially when there have been remarkable changes in other high-profile cities like New York City. Crime will always exist in New York City as it will in Ogden, but we can significantly reduce crime. In fact we have done so.
There will be some that won't believe that Ogden is as good as I'm painting it to be. To them I ask that they come to Ogden and see for themselves. Walk our streets and experience the change. There is much more for us to do in Ogden, but we are encouraged by the progress.

Mercifully, neither of these items is bogged down by charts, graphs or much in the way of verifiable substantive data. Godfrey has tried citing real data before of course, with very unfortunate results.

As for the SE's reason for the timing of these two articles, we can only speculate:

It's Thanksgiving eve, gentle readers... and SE Publisher Lee "Gondola Boy" Carter was perhaps overdue in expressing his perfunctory "special thanks." Perhaps these two items were stuck in a SE email inbox somewhere, since prior to the election.

And here's the truly sad part, we believe. With Boss Godfrey's long history of dissembling, spinning and prevaricating, even his remaining supporters don't know what to believe.

Standard-Examiner: FBI says Ogden Crime Stats Down -- UPDATED

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Regular as clock work, and on the eve of a pivotal Ogden City municipal election, wherein control of the majority of Ogden City Council seats is up for grabs, the Standard-Examiner comes through with another Godfrey administration tout piece, announcing once again that Boss Godfrey has his hands firmly placed on all the right levers and dials, making Ogden City one of the most crime-free towns in the Beehive State. Most of this stuff comes straight out of the mouth of Boss Godfrey of course, so as all WCF readers know, it has to be all true:

• FBI says Ogden crime stats down

Godfrey of course denies that the timing of this story has anything at all to do with Tuesday's election, since he's not personally running for re-election this time around. We'll assume of course that his lips were moving when he uttered this denial, and will thus draw all reasonable inferences therefrom.

Just to kick-start the morning discussion, we'll shamelessly incorporate Dan S.' most cogent comment from the above SE story's comment section, rather than spend another hour or two trying to piece together our own infallible analysis:

We should pay heed to Mark Twain and the many others who have pointed out the deceptive use of statistics. A year ago I carefully analyzed Ogden's crime statistics and reported the results here:

Ogden Crime Statistics... Without the Godfrey Distortions

There are just too many ways to present the data. Which categories of crimes do you include? Do you weight all crimes equally or does a murder count more than a simple assault? Do you report total crimes, or crimes per person? If the latter, what population data do you use? How far back in time do you go when reporting long-term trends?
In recent years, the Standard-Examiner has left all of these decisions to the politicians.
Getting a quote from a skeptical expert is better than nothing, but a true journalist would do an independent analysis of the data (or hire an independent expert to do such an analysis).
The Standard-Examiner doesn't even seem to notice when the statistics in one article contradict the statistics in an earlier article. In July 2008 the S-E published a similar crime-trend graph with different numbers: 72 (not 77) in 2000, and 77 (not 67) in 2006, for instance. (I think the discrepancy for 2000 is from using different population data, while the discrepancy for 2006 is because the city reported a higher number of crimes and later revised the number downward.) Here's a link to the earlier graph:

More Pro-Godfrey Spin from the Standard-Examiner

During his 2007 campaign, Godfrey claimed that Ogden's crime rate had dropped 23% between 1999 and 2006. The graph in this article shows a 16% drop between those years, while the July 2008 graph shows only a 4% drop. Godfrey also claimed there had been a 43% drop in the sub-category of violent crimes over the same time period, but the officially available statistics show little or no change in the violent crime rate.
According to the FBI web site, "the FBI discourages data users from ranking agencies [e.g., cities] and using the data as a measure of law enforcement effectiveness."

Uniform Crime Reports
A Word About UCR Data

(Readers who are seriously interested in the topic of Ogden crime statistics from a historic perspective also ought to take a gander at these articles too.)

So what about it gentle readers? Has Boss Godfrey at last embraced his primary and fundamental mayoral role as a zealot for public safety? Is Godfrey the Crime Fighter truly taking a bite out of crime? Or is it the same old story all over again, with Godfrey once again fiddling with the numbers?

Have at it, O Gentle Ones.

Update 10/28/09 10:02 a.m.: Godfrey's Mormon friends at KSL News are covering this story too, and savvy KSL viewers are all taking Godfrey's "eminations" with a grain of salt... shall we say?

Too funny.

Shocking News from Emerald City: Ogden City Crime Takes a Precipitous Nosedive

" Shocking" new crime data, courtesy of Boss Godfrey and his pals at KSL TV

Thanks to a tip from an alert reader, we're pleased to provide this video clip from last night's KSL broadcast, featuring a highly animated Boss Godfrey, mugging for the camera and announcing that thanks to his efforts, Ogden crime took a sudden and "shocking" nosedive during the 2008 calender year:

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Here's an alternate link, which also includes the written story text.

Of course Godfrey has been downplaying Ogden crime since last year's municipal election, and Godfrey's crime stats evaluation hasn't historically held up well when subjected to independent analysis. In short, Boss Godfrey has been accused in the past of "fudging the facts." We link a couple of examples of that here and here.

Yesterday's video clip contains two tables, providing a "minimalist" glimpse into some of Boss Godfrey's most recent data:


In truth, considering Boss Godfrey's track record, let's just say we're dubious about the reliability of these new figures. Perhaps if we kickstart a new discussion, a few of our more research-oriented and statistically-inclined readers can help us out with this.

KSL TV online readers have already provided a jumpstart on this, by the way, in the comments section beneath the main KSL article.

Readers with a particular interest in the crime in Ogden topic, can view our previously-assembled (and quite robust) Godfrey the Crimefighter series.

Have at it, O Gentle Ones. The world blogosphere sits on the edge of its seat, eagerly awaiting enlightenment about the meaning of all this.

Ogden Crime Statistics... Without the Godfrey Distortions

The article the Standard-Examiner should have written

By Dan Schroeder

After complaining loudly about the recent Standard-Examiner article on crime statistics, I think I owe it to readers to show what a competent handling of the statistics might look like.

Crime statistics for 2008 are not yet officially published, and it's impossible to interpret the bits and pieces provided in the recent news article. However, as reported a couple of months ago, we now have published data for all of 2007.

So I've added this to the earlier data that was analyzed on this blog last year, and produced some new graphs.

Both graphs show data from three sources: the FBI web site, the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification web site, and the Godfrey administration.

The first graph shows the total number of violent crimes (homicides, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults) reported in Ogden each year:

Assuming that the new data are accurate, Ogden saw more violent crimes in 2007 than in any year for which data are readily available (back to 1992). The new data add a third year to the disturbing upward trend since 2004.

The second graph shows the total number of crimes reported in Ogden each year that fall under the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) categories. These include the four categories of violent crimes plus burglary, larceny, auto theft, and arson:


Here the BCI data again show a disturbing upward trend for the last two years, while the FBI data indicate almost no change since 1999.

For those interested in the details, there's plenty more to say...

• These statistics don't include all crimes. Notably absent are simple assaults, fraud, forgery, drug offenses, traffic violations, and a number of less common types of crimes. However, for historical reasons, the eight UCR crime categories are the ones for which the best data are available.

• These graphs simply show the number of crimes--not the crime rate, which is the number of crimes per person. I've done this because you can't calculate the crime rate unless you have accurate population data, and there seems to be no agreement on how Ogden's population has changed between census years.

If we assume that Ogden's population has increased gradually over the time period shown, then graphs of the crime rates would be tipped somewhat more downward (or less upward).

• The graphs that the city (and the Godfrey campaign) published last year were of the crime rates. But these graphs used the 1990 census figure (about 63,900) for Ogden's population through 1999, then used the 2000 census figure (about 77,200) for the population thereafter. Unless you believe that Ogden's population increased by 21% in a single year, this trick created an apparent, but mostly artificial, 21% drop in the crime rates between 1999 and 2000. Conveniently, 2000 was the year that Mayor Godfrey took office.

• The three data sets for the number of UCR crimes (violent or total) should all agree with each other, because they ultimately come from the same source. The Ogden City Police Department collects the data and transmits it to the Utah BCI, which in turn transmits it to the FBI. It's therefore puzzling to see significant differences between the three data sets in recent years.

• The discrepancies between the FBI and BCI data sets may have something to do with the timing of their reports, and the fact that the city can provide updates and corrections to the data as much as a year after it is first transmitted. Last fall I contacted the BCI directly and learned that their latest data for 2006 were in agreement with the FBI's lower numbers, even though the report on the BCI web site contained (and still contains) the higher numbers. It should also be mentioned that the 2007 BCI data are still labeled "preliminary"; their final report won't be published until next month.

• The Godfrey administration's still-lower numbers for 2005 and 2006 also beg for explanation. Some possible clues can be found in the administration's breakdown by specific crime categories, which shows a precipitous decline from 107 robberies in 2004 to only 35 in 2005, and a decline from 849 burglaries in 2004 to only 520 in 2005. Both of these declines seem implausible because there were no such dramatic fluctuations in the previous 12 years, and because neither decline is reflected in the BCI or FBI data. However, the headings in the administration's table are "Robbery/Weapon" and "Burglary/Residential", which may indicate that "strong arm" robberies and nonresidential burglaries are excluded. Such exclusions would be in clear violation of the FBI's UCR standards, and it would be especially misleading to include these crimes up to 2004 but exclude them from 2005 on. Still, although it's impossible to be certain, I'm guessing that this is what the Godfrey administration has done.

• It should be noted that the table on the Ogden City site was posted there on 23 October 2007, the same day that a guest commentary by Jim Hutchins on this subject was printed in the Standard-Examiner. However, graphs and summaries of the same data had already been published in a city-sponsored newspaper ad, in a utility bill insert, and on Mayor Godfrey's campaign web site. The city has been asked (via written GRAMA request) to provide an even more detailed breakdown of the data for recent years, but has refused.

• During his campaign last year, Mayor Godfrey repeatedly claimed credit for reducing Ogden's total crime rate by 23%, and for reducing Ogden's violent crime rate by 43%. The truth is that both the total crime rate and the violent crime rate have been approximately flat since Godfrey first took office. After the errors in the administration's methodology have been corrected, any remaining changes since 1999 are small compared to the uncertainties due to differing data sets, the lack of good population data, and the random fluctuations that one would expect from year to year.

• The July 25 Standard-Examiner article was deficient in several ways. The text of the article reported that robberies and aggravated assaults increased by 19% from 2006 to 2007, even though the raw data (provided in an accompanying table) indicate an increase of 24%. More importantly, the text of the article failed to point out that this increase fell on top of similar increases in violent crime during the previous two years, resulting in a total violent crime increase of 64% since 2004 (according to the BCI data). This article was based entirely on the BCI data, with no indication that other sources (the FBI and the Godfrey administration) might differ. The graph accompanying the article didn't even include the new 2007 data, presumably because the preliminary BCI report didn't provide a population figure from which one could compute the crime rate. And finally, the article quoted Mayor Godfrey saying he actually knew the 2007 crime statistics would be higher and "attempted to communicate [this] to everyone a year ago," with no attempt (on the part of the newspaper) to verify whether there ever was such a communication and no mention of the multiple communications that the Godfrey administration and campaign sent out last year, claiming that the crime rates had dropped by large percentages.

• The September 15 Standard-Examiner article was even worse, because it labeled the data in a way that's impossible to interpret, and because the newspaper obviously allowed the city to cherry-pick the exact data (from a particular neighborhood, during a particular time period) that it wanted released.

• Ultimately, none of this data is any better than the methodology used to collect it. Even those of us who have never attended a crime conference can easily imagine that minor differences in protocol and classification of crimes might create noticeable differences in the statistics. There could also be inconsistencies from year to year in the fraction of crimes that get reported to police. And finally, as was pointed out by Professor Wadman in the recent news article, the underlying causes behind rising and falling crime statistics are extremely complex. So in the end, Ogden's crime statistics don't show any discernible trends that can reasonably be blamed on (or credited to) Mayor Godfrey or anyone else.

It's quite clear, however, that the mayor has made a practice of distorting and politicizing crime statistics for his personal benefit.

Godfrey Lackey Police Chief Senator Sez Ogden City Crime is Down

More pro-Godfrey propaganda from the Godfrey House Propaganda Organ

Emerald City Crime is front page news in this morning's Standard-Examiner, with this moronic Sam Cooper story, blaring the headline, "Ogden's crime hits 10-year low." The Standard-Examiner presents a hokey table within this morning's article which compares (we think) crime stats during the first six months of 2007... with midyear figures for 2008.

It's impossible to compare Mr. Cooper's information, of course, with any of the other verifiable crime data from previous and similar six month periods. Crime stats are seldom provided over such short periods and are not publicly available. Six months' worth of so-called "crime data" are what competent statisticians would call a "small and statistically insignificant sample."

We already have earlier upside-down crime data from Mr. Cooper's earlier POS article.

Better analyzed crime stats are available from gentle reader monotreme's fine 2007 crime series, as well.

We already know the so-called "brick and mortar" stalwart Greiner will lie for Godfrey... any time The Boss demands. His pension is on the line, after all.

The only thing we have extra for intelligent analysis beyond the vague statistics in today's Std-Ex article is Godfrey Lackey Chief Greiner's statement (taking into account eight months of unverifiable purported data,) appears to be this:

OGDEN — With hard work and the help of technology, crime rates in Ogden have hit a 10-year low, the city’s police chief says.
“The gross number of part one crimes for the first eight months of this year is at the lowest point it’s been in more than 10 years,” said Chief Jon Greiner.

Of course the last month (August) of Greiner's data fails even to show up in today's Std-Ex's graphic table.

So we guess we're going to have take the Std-Ex's word for this on the crime data. Boss Godfrey is a crime fighter, LOL, according to today's Std-Ex.

And speaking of Greiner's high tech computer technology, consider this...

What's next for Ogden... This? (we can always have hope.)

So what say out gentle readers about all this?

More Pro-Godfrey Spin from the Standard-Examiner

The stats say crime is going up; the headline says just the opposite

By Curmudgeon

The Standard Examiner this morning has a front page story discussing crime rates in Ogden in 2007. It reports that aggravated assaults and robberies were up 19%, burglaries up 10% and auto thefts up 7%. An included graph shows that homicides, larceny and arson are also up (Click to enlarge image):


And how does the Standard-Examiner headline the story? This is how:

"Ogden Mayor: Fight Against Crime Going Better in '08"

Here is what Hizzonah has to say in the story. [Note: he has his verbal fog machine on overdrive]:

City officials anticipated a rise in 2007 crime statistics and reacted last summer, said Mayor Matthew Godfrey.... "With the Crime Reduction Squad and the focus we were putting on (central Ogden), crime stats are going to shoot up."

Let me see now: the Mayor put special emphasis on controlling crime and so, he says, naturally, crime rates were going to increase? [Up is down, In is Out, War is Peace in the happy world of Matthew Godfrey.] While arrest stats might increase as a result of a Crime Suppression drive by the Mayor and City police, crime rates should not. But they did.

But wait. Hizzonah is not finished yet. He then told reporter Sam Cooper this: "But what we've seen is crime is already starting to go down. In the last six months we've seen a dramatic reduction of crime."

Did the Mayor offer any statistics to back up that claim? If he did, the Std-Ex isn't telling. Did Mr. Cooper press him for some corroboration of his claim? If he did, the story doesn't say.

So, a long story reporting rising crime rates in very nearly all categories in Ogden in 2007, and what does the headline point to? The Mayor's one sentence uncorroborated claim based on numbers we're apparently not permitted to examine, that things are getting better.

A sad performance by the Std-Ex this morning. And a very inaccurate headline that counters very nearly the entire import of the article beneath it and that highlights instead the Mayor's uncorroborated and unsupported [and apparently by Mr. Cooper unexamined] claim that things are getting much much better now.

Boss Godfrey Takes Another Bite Outta Crime

The mayor adopts a "zero tolerance policy" for the parents of "gangstas" and other "taggas"

Although everyone in Ogden knows that Boss Godfrey ordinarily displays a near complete blind eye to crime, we lumpencitizens are also gratified to know that there are certain exceptions.

For example, Boss Godfrey is a true crime fighter, when it comes to bicycle thieves.

And we know he has a very low tolerance for purportedly crooked (and insuborbordinate) whistleblowers.

And now we learn from the Standard-Examiner today that Godfrey's most detested segment of the Ogden criminal element is composed of "taggers" and other vandals, who use spray paint to sloganize and damage public and private property. Here's an example of the work of the taggers Boss Godfrey reportedly intends to shut down... by calling and suing their moms: Shocking, ainnit?

We don't know which particular children are in the mayor's gunsights over this, but judging from the nature of the graffiti, we're gonna presume that either Boss Godfrey or Ogden City Attorney Gary Williams has already called the former Lift Ogden Chairman's mom.

Next!

Boss Godfrey's Crime Reduction Squad Reportedly Takes a Bite Outta Ogden Crime

Crime in the city down 14% and 17% in two recent months... according to "Crime-fighter Godfrey"

By Curmudgeon

Just want to note, briefly, that the Standard-Examiner has three interesting gang crime stories up this morning. Two on the front page, both by Sam Cooper, can be found here and here. The unit is having a significant impact in the central city, community residents are becoming involved in crime control, and crime in the city overall was down 14% and 17% according to the Mayor in two recent months.

And in the Top of Utah section, another story reporting that gangs are moving to the suburbs to escape the increasing heat put on them by urban police gang units. Good news for Ogden, not so good for Clearfield. The story is here.

Of late, the Std-Ex has been doing some good reporting on gangs in Ogden.

Ed. Note: And wasn't it just last Thursday that we openly queried: "Whatever happened to Godfrey's 'zero tolerance policy'?"

Emperor Godfrey Fiddles While the Lumpencitizens Duck For Cover

Godfrey's "crime fighter" campaign promises fizzle

Despite Boss Godfrey's glib 2007 election campaign promise to adopt a zero tolerance gang crime policy, Ogden's Central City remains a virtual war zone, as the Standard-Examiner again reports in this morning's edition. From today's Sam Cooper story, under the blaring front page headline, "Shooting shocks residents":

OGDEN — A 19-year-old Ogden man and several residents of a downtown apartment building are grateful to be alive today after a drive-by shooting sprayed their building with bullets.
Police said four or five shots from a dark-colored SUV smacked into an apartment at 235 28th St. shortly before midnight Tuesday, one piercing the wall and another narrowly missing a woman and her young child nearby.
Witnesses said nearly a dozen people were near, or in, the apartment at the time for a barbecue, including five children between the ages of 7 months and 5 years old.
“I was sitting on the couch watching TV, then it sounded like fireworks or bottles breaking out on the sidewalk,” said Jordan Nelson.
Then a bullet burst through the wall, sending a cloud of plaster into the air. It passed directly over the children’s play area, and over the head of a young girl lying on the carpet, witnesses said.
“Everyone started running toward the kitchen,” Nelson said. “I went to do the same thing, but couldn’t … I’d been shot.”

Six months post-election, the lumpencitizens, men, women and children alike, are still ducking for cover, terrorized by gang violence, even inside their own homes.

And where is Boss Godfrey and his "zero tolerance," as the gang crime situation continues to deteriorate in our inner city?

Godfrey plainly has other fish to fry.

As Godfrey pursues his single-minded "vision" to transform Emerald City into the world's largest (and silliest) amusement park, we predict custom-fitted flak jackets and bullet proof vests are bound to become the newest locally-inspired haute couture MattGodfeyWorld urban battle gear/fashion statement:

Mayor, You Lied

Third Article in a Series Demolishing Boss Godfrey's Bogus Crime-fighter Theme

By Monotreme

Thanks to a tip from reporter Lee Davidson at the Deseret News, I’ve finally managed to find a reliable source for crime statistics for Ogden City from the year 2006.

As you might recall, this datapoint was important in order to critically examine Mayor Godfrey’s repeated claim, in both his campaign literature and in his taxpayer-funded advertisement in the Thursday, August 30, 2007 Standard-Examiner, that

“Crime has dropped more than 23% since Matthew Godfrey became Mayor, including a drop in violent crimes of 43% compared with an increase of 21% during the 7 years before he took office.” [http://www.votematthew.com/about.html]

“[V]iolent crimes recorded in 1999 were 6.7 compared to 3.8 reported last year — in other words, violent crime in Ogden is down by 43 percent.” [Advertising supplement, Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner, Weber Plus section, p. 9D]

These statements are not misinterpretations. They are both, in fact, blatant lies. Mayor Matthew Godfrey is a liar.

I am not making an unsupported allegation. Rather, I’m basing my statement on the facts. Here are the sources of my information:

1) An undated report signed by Chief Greiner, apparently from 2004, available as an Acrobat version of a Powerpoint presentation on the Ogden City website. Click on the “12-Year Crime Report” link. (Greiner 2004).

2) The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report, published annually with data breakdowns for all cities, states and regions (FBI UCR).

3) Mayor Godfrey’s personal advertising space, under the guise of an Ogden City communication with its citizens, published in the Thursday, August 30, 2007 Standard-Examiner (Godfrey 2007).

4) The State of Utah Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Crime in Utah annual report, available online (Utah BCI). Thanks to Lee Davidson of the Deseret News for this link.

Two independent editorial sources have also published articles that directly or indirectly refute Mayor Godfrey’s claims and directly support the claims made in my present article. Mr. Davidson and Pat Reavy of the Deseret News wrote an excellent article, “Prime for Crime?” published in the August 26 2007 Deseret News. I recommend this article for its discussion of the pitfalls of the type of crime analysis we’re engaging in here.

“South Salt Lake, a city with a relatively small population but a big industrial area, suffers the highest per-person crime rates — by far — in many categories.
In the period analyzed, the city had an average annual rate of 86 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.

That is three times higher than the state average — and even 17 percent higher than second-place Salt Lake City, and 46 percent higher than third-place Ogden.” [Davidson and Reavy, Deseret News, August 26, 2007]

(If my math is correct, this gives an average of 5.9 violent crimes per thousand in Ogden for the period under analysis, 2002 to 2006. My analysis gives 5.2 violent crimes per thousand. Mayor Godfrey says it’s 4.4 in his recent agitprop. More about this later.)

Over at the Salt Lake Tribune, Kristen Moulton provides the corrected figures for the “precipitous decline” [Matthew Godfrey, Salt Lake Tribune, August 8, 2007] in Ogden’s crime: 12.8 percent in total crime (less than the drop in the state as a whole) and a whopping, precipitous 5.1 percent in violent crime.

Mayor Godfrey must read the papers. (I’ll remain silent on the issue of whether he reads WCF.) He must know that his figures are wrong. Yet, he has not corrected them. Therefore, he’s a liar.

Here is a graph comparing violent crime rates (per 1000 citizens) for the years 1995 to 2006, updated to include the Utah Bureau of Criminal Investigation figures:


Note that three of the four sources of data are in good general agreement: the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (last year available, 2005); Chief Greiner’s undated report, presumed to be from 2004; and the Utah BCI reports.

The only data source that seems to be completely faulty, to the point of being fabricated from whole cloth, is Mayor Godfrey’s published numbers on which he bases his “precipitous 43% drop” claim.

In fact, the Mayor has artificially inflated his pre-Louis XV baseline (“Avant moi, le déluge”, says our own not-so-Sunny King). He actually reported 2000 and 2001 statistics accurately, and he’s pretty close on 2003 and 2004. He replicates Greiner’s erroneous 2002, artificially low numbers.

But where he really goes to town with the falsehoods is in the 2005 and 2006 statistics. He has dropped both numbers by more than a third in order to substantiate his false claim of a “precipitous 43% drop” in violent crime.

The 2005 violent crime rate per thousand people is 3.2 according to Matthew Godfrey and 4.9 according to the State of Utah. The 2006 violent crime rate per thousand people is 3.8 according to Mayor Godfrey and 6.0 according to the State of Utah. Who’re you gonna believe?

In fact, according to last year’s State of Utah BCI statistics, violent crime rates in the last year of Godfrey’s reign (6.0 per thousand) are above those of his first year in office (5.7 per thousand). Using his own faulty math skills (especially unforgiveable in a Master of Accounting) and hyperbolic phrasing, violent crime has suffered a precipitous increase during Mayor Godfrey’s administration.

The lies he tells about total crime are small only in comparison to the Big Lie (“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed…”, Orwell G, 1984).


Once again, the pre-Godfrey 1999 number is mysteriously inflated, and the 2006 number is artificially deflated. This makes the drop seem more “precipitous” than it actually is, and as has been noted earlier by Kristen Moulton and by me, the drop is still smaller than for the state of Utah as a whole over the same time period.

In fact, once again borrowing his phrasing, total crime is up precipitously from the first year of Mayor Godfrey’s administration to the last.

For those of you who have made it this far, some methodological notes. First, while reviewing my previous articles for accuracy, I was troubled by a discrepancy between sources in the 2000 data. I found a faulty population statistic in the FBI Uniform Crime Report data for 2000; they had used a previous census estimate rather than the official 2000 census figure for that year. As you can see in these graphs, when I corrected the denominator, all four data sources were in perfect agreement.

A second methodological note: the 2006 Utah Bureau of Criminal Investigation data are clearly marked as “preliminary”. However, it’s hard for me to imagine that the number of crimes reported in Ogden in 2006 will be revised downward from 474 crimes (two homicides, 42 forcible rapes, 132 robberies, and 298 aggravated assaults) to 301, which would be the number required to achieve Mayor Godfrey’s stated rate of 3.8 per thousand. (A total of 301 violent crimes divided by 79 thousand people gives 3.8 per thousand. A total of 474 violent crimes divided by 79 thousand people gives 6.0 per thousand.)

Third, I’ve had to estimate Ogden’s population for 2006. The US Census bureau estimates only run to July 2005: they have a population of 78,309. From 2000 to 2003, the population of Ogden rose by 1.4%. I applied the same rate of growth to 2003 to 2006 to get an estimated population of 79,389, even though Ogden’s estimated population peaked at 78,510 in 2002, according to the Census Bureau.

Using the larger population is favorable to Mayor Godfrey, and I’m a fair, albeit spiny, echidna.

Using the higher population estimate produces a violent crime rate of 5.97 per thousand citizens, as opposed to 6.05 per thousand with the official 2005 population estimate. Again, note that Ogden’s population would have to increase to 124,736 — catapulting Ogden’s population, currently seventh in the state, well above West Valley City and Provo, and making it second in size only to Salt Lake City in Utah — in order to get 474 violent crimes divided by 125 thousand population, or 3.8 violent crimes per thousand as Mayor Godfrey claims. Readers should also note that Provo's rate of violent crime is 1.4 per thousand for a city slightly larger than Ogden. (Source: Davidson and Reavy, DesNews article previously cited.) If Ogden could match Provo's violent crime rate, that would indeed be a "precipitous" drop in violent crime.

Or, as Occam’s Razor tells us, the simplest explanation is the most likely: Mayor Godfrey is a liar.

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It's a Crime

Second article in a series demolishing Boss Godfrey's bogus crime-fighter theme

By Monotreme

Mayor Godfrey has made his effectiveness as a crimefighter a centerpiece of his mayoral re-election campaign. Yesterday, our household received a glossy mailing that touted his crimefighting skills, his fecundity and his ability to read bedtime stories to his daughter. All good qualities for a mayor, I suppose, but personally I find the only relevant or useful part of the mailing to be his claims regarding his crimefighting skills.

An earlier WCF article examined the problems with this claim, including his unprovoked mugging of the rules of logic and argument (the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy) and some chicanery with numbers.

In Mayor Godfrey’s latest fusillade against logic and reason, he finally reveals the “raw” data underlying his startling campaign claims: a 23 percent reduction in overall crimes from 1999 to 2006, and a 43 percent reduction in violent crimes over the same period.

Let’s set aside for a moment the questionable ethics of using taxpayer money to buy a full-page ad in the Ogden Standard-Examiner for what is essentially a campaign document. We’ll also not beat a dead horse on the post hoc logical fallacy, even though it still casts doubt on his claims of crimefighting prowess.

What I want to talk about today is the fact that he is guilty of depraved indifference to the truth. Either he has negligently failed to check the data underlying his claim, or he is a liar who fabricated numbers to make himself look good.

There are three sources of data which I’ve used for this analysis.

1) An undated report signed by Chief Greiner, apparently from 2004, available as an Acrobat version of a Powerpoint presentation on the Ogden City website. Click on the “12-Year Crime Report” link. (Greiner 2004).

2) The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report, published annually with data breakdowns for all cities, states and regions (FBI UCR).

3) Mayor Godfrey’s personal advertising space, under the guise of an Ogden City communication with its citizens, published in the Thursday, August 30, 2007 Standard-Examiner (Godfrey 2007).

The Ogden City advertisement repeats exactly, almost verbatim, the claims contained in Mayor Godfrey’s campaign material:

“Over the last eight years, since Matthew Godfrey became mayor, Ogden has hired 18 new police officers and crime has dropped more than 23% — including a drop in violent crimes of 43%. That’s no coincidence.” [Campaign mailing, paid for by the People to Re-elect Matthew Godfrey]

“According to statistics from the Ogden Police Department, the overall crime rate in Ogden has dropped by 23 percent in the last eight years. Non-violent crimes are down by 21 percent, and data on violent crimes proves even more significant.

“In a report calculating incidents based upon crimes per thousand population, violent crimes recorded in 1999 were 6.7 compared to 3.8 reported last year — in other words, violent crime in Ogden is down by 43 percent.

…“[There is a] remarkable drop in crime that is already evident in Ogden” [Ogden City advertisement, paid for by the People who May or May Not Want to Re-elect Matthew Godfrey But Who Must, By Law, Pay Taxes to Publish This Unadulterated Nonsense]

I’ve taken the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report statistics and converted them to the same basis used in the Greiner and Godfrey reports (crimes per 1,000 population): I divided by 100 the FBI metric (number of crimes per 100,000). I dropped the 2003 data from the Greiner report because it was marked “projected” and therefore I did not think that Chief Greiner should be held accountable for its veracity.

The Godfrey and Greiner numbers (red and blue) are in general agreement, except for a troubling increase in 1999 crime in Godfrey’s data which is not shown in Greiner’s data. The Godfrey and FBI UCR data are also in good general agreement, except for that same spike in 1999 which Godfrey claims (and which he uses as a baseline for his “23% drop” claim) but which is not reflected in the federal reports.

I’ve already discussed in my previous article why the apparent drop in total crime is not so startling, since total crimes in Utah dropped at an greater rate over the same period, probably due to demographic changes.

Here’s a comparison for the “remarkable” drop in violent crime during Mayor Godfrey’s administration:


Evidence of data manipulation is manifest here. The 1999 number is far higher than we’d expect from either the FBI Uniform Crime Report or from the Ogden City Police Department’s own published report, and the 2005 number is far lower. The 2002 spike in the FBI data for violent crimes is inexplicably absent in both Greiner’s and Godfrey’s data. The 2000, 2003 and 2004 data are in good general agreement, and the 2001 number is identical in all three reports. The 2002 spike is probably a statistical aberration, as is the 2001 dip, since they both lie away from the trend line. Still, Godfrey’s and Greiner’s data preserve the artificially low 2001 figure but “shave off” the artificially high 2002 figure.

As far as I’m aware, the Ogden City Police Department is legally obligated to provide accurate data to the FBI for their Uniform Crime Report. They seem to have done a good job doing so; there are minor discrepancies in the data which may be explained by methodological differences (such as different population estimates, different types of crimes included, and the like).

But how in the world can we possibly explain an artificially inflated total crime rate in 1999, before Mayor Godfrey was elected?

How can we possibly explain an artificially inflated violent crime rate in 1999, and an artificially low violent crime rate in 2002 and in 2005, the last year for which we can compare publicly available data? Isn’t it odd that the “43% drop in violent crime” claim simply reflects a comparison of two faulty datapoints (1999 and 2005)? How odd that the faulty data is in exactly the direction that makes Mayor Godfrey look more effective at reducing crime than he actually is.

(A full version, including city-by-city breakdown, of the 2006 FBI UCR data has not been released yet, so I did not include the Mayor’s claim for 2006 data of a rate of 3.8 violent crimes per 1000 population. His “43% drop” claim is apparently based on comparison of the bogus 1999 datapoint, 6.7 per 1000, versus the unverifiable 2006 datapoint, 3.8 per 1000. 3.8/6.7 is 57%, and 100% minus 57% is a drop of 43%.)

The real drop, using real, verifiable statistics, is 13%, as I’ve argued earlier. There is a lot of year-to-year fluctuation, so I took the average of the pre-Godfrey years for which FBI UCR data were available (1995-1999) and compared them to the average of the Godfrey years (2000-2005). I think it’s disingenuous to use only two favorable datapoints in making comparisons when you have yearly data for an eight-year mayoral administration.

To get a 43% drop in violent crime, the author of these statistics had to artificially inflate the 1999 number and artificially deflate the 2005 number.

Last year Mayor Godfrey explained to me that we were in a Republic, not a Democracy. This year, based on the letters generated by his toadies, it appears we are employees (or maybe stockholders, I’m not sure) of the Ogden City Corporation, which like all corporations is looking out for the commonweal, like water and sewer and parkland and police services.

It seems to me that the CEO of a $120 million corporation, a Captain of Industry, what Tom Wolfe would have called a Master of the Universe, would want to have accurate data in order to make his Important Corporate Decisions that we mere mortals could not possibly understand.

It seems to me that the CEO of a $120 million corporation would be tarred and feathered by either his board or the stockholders if he were found to have fabricated accounting data in order to make it appear the corporation was more successful than it actually was.

Was this done by Mayor Godfrey, or was it done by one of his employees?

Will the theft of lawn signs be included in next year’s statistics?

Update 9/1/07 11:09 a.m. MT: At the request of one of our readers, we have created a printer-friendly page for readers who would like a hard-copy printout of this article. The page can be found here. Simply navigate to the page, and send the document to your printer.