The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division recently released statistics on crime and law enforcement for 2008. The reports offer a fascinating snapshot of crime and law enforcement variations by state.
You can download both sets of the complete United States statistics from the FBI website. The complete crime data is available for download here. The crime statistics are supposedly based on Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) for 29 categories of crime from the most heinous to lesser crimes. The complete law enforcement data is available for download here.
Here’s what I found:
I was curious to see where Wisconsin stood relative to other states, so I downloaded the files in Excel and performed some sorting and ranking. I was surprised to find how poorly we ranked when it came to our total arrest statistics vs. other states. I expected to find that certain poor red states would rank higher than their population percentage, but didn’t expect to see this with Wisconsin.
However, as I got to thinking about it, the statistics could also reflect several factors – better reporting than other states, greater likelihood of arrests (note the state is #1 in disorderly conduct crimes), possible misinformation entered and reported to or by the FBI, inconsistent reporting based upon state classifications of crime (even with the UCR), a more efficient law enforcement and legal system, data reported in 2008 for crimes that occurred prior to last year, data inconsistency (see the population data below for an example of this) and a myriad of other factors.
According to the FBI, the data reflected under-reporting for states like IL, which for some reason only reported arrests in Rockford and Chicago, leaving a vast geographic area of the state without any arrests reported. They also caution against comparing the data due to “variations in arrest practices.”
With the exception of our ranking by the number of female officers at 15th highest and ranking of 22nd for other assaults; the law enforcement and crime statistics do not paint a promising picture of our beautiful state.
Population Statistics
- 19th largest state (5,607,356 in the Excel Spread Sheet; 5,627,967 on the FBI web site)
Law Enforcement Statistics
- 19th largest total law enforcement team (civilians and uniformed officers)
- 19th largest # male officers
- 15th largest # female officers
- 14th largest # of police agencies
Crime
- 1st highest disorderly conduct
- 5th highest forcible rape
- 6th highest crime all classes
- 6th highest arson
- 6th highest DUI
- 7th highest larceny theft
- 8th highest property crime
- 12th highest forgery & counterfeiting
- 14th highest motor vehicle theft
- 17th highest drug abuse
- 18th highest violent crime
- 18th highest murder
- 18th highest aggravated assault
- 19th highest robbery
- 22nd highest other assaults
If you’d like to dig deeper into this data, you can do so by reviewing the State of Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance that has published a 283 page report on arrests in Wisconsin under the UCR that is available for download here.
Their data places the arrest statistics into 5 major buckets – violent crime, property crimes, drug crimes, society crimes and other crimes. The OJA reports the following trends (both positive and negative)
- Society crimes – 172,128, down 3% from 2007
- Drug crimes – 25,314, down 2% from 2007
- Violent crimes – 8,133, down 1% from 2007
- Property crimes – 63,596, up .3% from 2007
- Other – 146,372, down 2% from 2007
While the decreases paint a slightly better picture then the absolute number of crimes, overall this data should be troublesome for all of us in the state. I was curious to look at two counties that I have connections to – Dane and Milwaukee to see what their police departments were reporting. Here’s the data for each of these counties.
Great post – very interesting topic & some very thought provoking commentary & insights.
I’d like to dig into the data myself but don’t have time now.
The one thing I’d add though is that I think the vector of the data is the most important thing for us to look at. Regardless of what the data says in absolute numbers, if it is improving year-on-year, we’re on the right track and if it’s getting worse, we’re not.
That is not to say the rest of the data isn’t valuable too – especially for law enforcement and people interesting in discovering and dealing with root problems.
Thanks for the feedback. I was fascinated by the data and I can tell you I hated statistics as an undergrad and barely tolerated it as a grad student…. :). I’d really like to get an explanation of the disorderly conduct arrests. This could be problematic if the police are arresting people for this “crime” at such a great rate to put us first in the nation.
After learning that Wisconsin is the Beer-Soaked state, per Zach, I think the disorderly arrests may reflect that fact.
If I’m not mistaken, our disorderly conduct statute is pretty broad, giving law enforcement lots of leeway when it comes to their ability to arrest folks for disorderly conduct.
Under the WI D/C statute I could probably be arrested for D/C every freaking day! 😉
You’re probably right….
If you only knew! Wisconsin has the smallest state police agency in the country. They are also the most efficient police agency in the state. They make up only 2% of law enforcement in the state but make about 20% of the arrests. It is so obvious that the state patrol is so understaffed. Proper staffing could help curve our crime.
I think it says something that we rank that high and I still feel relatively safe. Are we a safer country than the media leads us to believe? I thought we were #1 in DUI? Wonder which 5 states beat us. I am surprised by some of these — #6 in arson, really?
I note that you said you thought “certain poor red states would rank higher…” What’s the point of adding the ‘red’? Not sure how that is relevant. Maybe a certain poor blue city is dragging our state down in these statistics, hmmm?
The arrest statistics and comparisons were based on absolute numbers of arrests, not per capita adjusted statistics. The states that were ahead of us in absolute numbers were CA – 121,180, TX – 90,066, Fl – 61,852, PA – 53,319, NC – 49,599 and WI – 40,549. If you adjust this per capita, the rankings would change accordingly.
In terms of statistics for the state. the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed today that arrests were down in Milwaukee, if that is the city you are referring to FMS. In an article titled “Crime falls statewide, led by the city” http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/59414322.html, it was reported that violent crimes in the city were down 10%.
I think you need to look at the data before you make assumptions, as I did when I wrote this post. I also admitted to my own prejudices about red states, something that you in your comments about blue states appear incapable of doing.
Thanks for your comment.
My mention of a blue city was to show how ridiculous it was for you to assume that it would be higher in “poor red states” when you failed to even think about “poor blue cities.”
I have no prejudicies about blue states because I don’t think about things in that manner. You seem to be one that frames everything in a red vs. blue dynamic no matter what the issue (apparently true in your other post about red state teen pregnancies). That’s kind of sad. You probably drive a certain car because it’s fashionable in blue state (or none at all if you really want blue cred). Or you switched to Pepsi because you heard Coke is more popular in those poor southern states you seem so obsessed with. Get over it.
We have a police state in WI. The police are out of control for making all the disorderly conduct arrests that they do. I recently got arrested for D/C for no good reason and was not drunk. The cop was rude, I guess according to him I was guilty until proven innocent and I know he didnt like how I looked. He got mad at me and arrested me. Now I have to waste my time fighting this in court. Hopefully the jury will be able to see thru all his lies and acquit me.