The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) - The St. Louis Police Department said Wednesday it has formed a new group to audit its crime-reporting process, after officials acknowledged in recent weeks that the city’s original 2003 crime statistics were wrong.
While city officials had said crime declined to historic lows, the crime rate actually rose about 4 percent last year.
Police Chief Joe Mokwa said the new committee will review crime-reporting procedures, with the seven-member committee of volunteers soon to begin work and make recommendations to the Board of Police Commissioners by the mid-January. He said that if they find they need more time, they’ll just need to ask for it.
“I am trying to make this (process) as transparent as possible,” Mokwa said, stressing that St. Louisans need an accurate picture of crime in the area. “I am absolutely serious about ensuring that the crime statistics we report to the state, the FBI and the public are as accurate as humanly possible.”
Mokwa, who has called the initial report an honest mistake, said Wednesday that much of the problem was due to a change in the way the department filed reports. He also apologized previously for failing to alert Mayor Francis Slay to the error earlier - Mokwa learned of it in June but didn’t tell the mayor until last month.
Both the mayor and Mokwa have emphasized that crime has been down sharply in 2004 in all major areas, except murder. Despite that, the city remained on pace in November for the second-lowest homicide total in four decades.
The crime figures released in the spring were widely reported as an indication of St. Louis’ resurgence. Though car thefts were up, murders hit a 41-year low, robberies were down 18 percent, and assaults were down 13 percent.
Police officials later realized they failed to count 5,760 crimes, though the number of murders cited in the original report was off by only one.
In years past, officers dictated crime reports to a typist. Starting last year, many used computers and were responsible for handling their own reports; as a result, Mokwa said, many were filed late or coded improperly. “This transition was a significant change in culture,” Mokwa said.
The department corrected the figures in its report to the FBI in July, but too late for the bureau’s often-cited annual crime survey. And the department made no effort to publicize the changes.
In fact, statistics provided in November showed that while murders are up in 2004, violent crime overall is down 17.6 compared to a year ago, and property crime is down more 22.6 percent.
The new committee is made up of Edward Dowd Jr., a former U.S. attorney and a partner with Bryan Cave LLP; Jerry Carlson, a partner with KPMG; Scott Decker, a University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist; James Gilsinan III, dean of Saint Louis University’s College of Public Service; Tripp Frohlichstein, president of MediaMasters and a columnist for the St. Louis Journalism Review; Barbara Wright, head of the police department’s planning and technology; and Maj. Paul Nocchiero, special assistant to Mokwa.