Interesting info about crime stats in TN (Kingsport, Pigeon Forge: sex offenders, crime rates)

[mbmouse]

Hello all,
I know the question about if the crime stats are real and how they are reported has come up here on the forum many times. I said I would look more in depth at this and get to some local departments that could get some answers.
I have just gotten off the phone with Lee Fish, she is the director of the new program at the Chamber of Commerce in Kingsport called Move to Kingsport. There have been such an overwhelming amount of requested info on Kingsport from folks looking to move there, the chamber was smart and created this program. It is her job to look at things like this and she is very good at her job.
I talked with her about this last week when I met with her about a different issue. She said she had already saw the stats and saw the discrepancy and was looking into it that she would get some answers for us. She did so by contacting a Sargent at the Kingsport police dept and they had quite a conversation which she shared with me, which I in turn would like to share with all of you.
First, we were given a more updated local web site about crime rates and stats than here on City-Data (sorry Admin ) it is Crime Statistics Unit - TIBRS
then go to the "public web site" and then click on "east" and the counties/cities and towns in East TN will be broken down there.
Now, to this conversation. The Sgt. stated that just about any time some one burps in Kingsport, it is reported to this data base. He said that they report EVERYTHING, they do this because if something that was not reported resulted in something adverse, they did not want that liability. He also said he knew all cities, counties and even states do not report this way but some do and their department's policy is to report everything. I would not want the responsibility of deciding what to report, what not to and then something happen where one that I did not report should have been so I can understand it. And I believe it does explain the stats being so high in some towns yet people who live there say it is so safe and they don't understand the stats either.
An example was given. The stat listed as "aggravated assaults" is an umbrella category that includes several different "crimes", one being reckless endangerment. What is that? The example given is if there is car "A" is sitting at a stop light and car "B" pulls up and taps the bumper of car "A" and then pulls off. The owner of car "A" reports the incident. Car "B" has 5 people in the car, that is 5 counts of reckless endangerment reported. I believe this is then also reported as a traffic issue and a crime issue. 1 incident where someone was not actually assaulted as we think of it but the crime stat number for aggravated assault goes up by 5.
The other important information that was given in regards to just Kingsport, but could carry over to any city in TN is that there are 44k people that actually live in the Kingsport city limits however because of the large amount of jobs there as well as shopping, there are 100k people that come to Kingsport everyday and some of those do things that are included in the crime stats.
The other issue Lee and I discussed was the rape stats. With the above being know as to how crimes are reported in regards to the stats, it is safe to say that if an 18 year old and 17 year old are caught necking in the park, that would add one to the rape stats that could be the umbrella stat that covers sexual offenses. Even though they were both consenting, because one was under 18, the crime was committed then reported to the stats data base. It also adds one (the 18 year old) to the sex offender list. So that one essentially harmless incident has added 2 different stats to the reporting data base. Both Lee and I agreed that the reporting needs to be more conforming so every city/ town/county and state report the same way so folks could get real info to compare, but it doesn't seem like that is going to happen any time soon.
The other info the Sgt. gave Lee was the consensus rate. He said that almost 40% of the crimes are solved or closed, which is MUCH higher than the national average. For example, this year there are 360 crime listed as narcotics crimes and 355 of those are already solved and closed.
All that being said, I do not know how or where a person can go to except the local police departments to research the crime stats of an area. Sorry, wish I had better news, but at least it is a bit of an explanation for the reported crime stats that seem so way off to the locals that live here.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by mbmouse

Hello all,
I know the question about if the crime stats are real and how they are reported has come up here on the forum many times. I said I would look more in depth at this and get to some local departments that could get some answers.
I have just gotten off the phone with Lee Fish, she is the director of the new program at the Chamber of Commerce in Kingsport called Move to Kingsport. There have been such an overwhelming amount of requested info on Kingsport from folks looking to move there, the chamber was smart and created this program. It is her job to look at things like this and she is very good at her job.
I talked with her about this last week when I met with her about a different issue. She said she had already saw the stats and saw the discrepancy and was looking into it that she would get some answers for us. She did so by contacting a Sargent at the Kingsport police dept and they had quite a conversation which she shared with me, which I in turn would like to share with all of you.
First, we were given a more updated local web site about crime rates and stats than here on City-Data (sorry Admin ) it is Crime Statistics Unit - TIBRS
then go to the "public web site" and then click on "east" and the counties/cities and towns in East TN will be broken down there.
Now, to this conversation. The Sgt. stated that just about any time some one burps in Kingsport, it is reported to this data base. He said that they report EVERYTHING, they do this because if something that was not reported resulted in something adverse, they did not want that liability. He also said he knew all cities, counties and even states do not report this way but some do and their department's policy is to report everything. I would not want the responsibility of deciding what to report, what not to and then something happen where one that I did not report should have been so I can understand it. And I believe it does explain the stats being so high in some towns yet people who live there say it is so safe and they don't understand the stats either.
An example was given. The stat listed as "aggravated assaults" is an umbrella category that includes several different "crimes", one being reckless endangerment. What is that? The example given is if there is car "A" is sitting at a stop light and car "B" pulls up and taps the bumper of car "A" and then pulls off. The owner of car "A" reports the incident. Car "B" has 5 people in the car, that is 5 counts of reckless endangerment reported. I believe this is then also reported as a traffic issue and a crime issue. 1 incident where someone was not actually assaulted as we think of it but the crime stat number for aggravated assault goes up by 5.
The other important information that was given in regards to just Kingsport, but could carry over to any city in TN is that there are 44k people that actually live in the Kingsport city limits however because of the large amount of jobs there as well as shopping, there are 100k people that come to Kingsport everyday and some of those do things that are included in the crime stats.
The other issue Lee and I discussed was the rape stats. With the above being know as to how crimes are reported in regards to the stats, it is safe to say that if an 18 year old and 17 year old are caught necking in the park, that would add one to the rape stats that could be the umbrella stat that covers sexual offenses. Even though they were both consenting, because one was under 18, the crime was committed then reported to the stats data base. It also adds one (the 18 year old) to the sex offender list. So that one essentially harmless incident has added 2 different stats to the reporting data base. Both Lee and I agreed that the reporting needs to be more conforming so every city/ town/county and state report the same way so folks could get real info to compare, but it doesn't seem like that is going to happen any time soon.
The other info the Sgt. gave Lee was the consensus rate. He said that almost 40% of the crimes are solved or closed, which is MUCH higher than the national average. For example, this year there are 360 crime listed as narcotics crimes and 355 of those are already solved and closed.
All that being said, I do not know how or where a person can go to except the local police departments to research the crime stats of an area. Sorry, wish I had better news, but at least it is a bit of an explanation for the reported crime stats that seem so way off to the locals that live here.

Thanks so much for that interesting link, MB. You are definitely right about the way certain crimes are reported or not reported.

And about the 18 year old with the 17 year old, I'm convinced that's one of the reasons why college towns often have more so-called sex offenders; high school kids regularly crash college parties and lie about their age just so they can bag a college kid. (And let's face it, many high school kids look a lot older than they really are.)

And the example you gave about all the people who come to Kingsport daily but who don't actually live there, that also explains why places like Pigeon Forge have such astronomically high crime rates; the rates are based on the resident population, NOT on how many hotel rooms are there or how many people are just visiting for the day.

In other words, I still say that we live in a pretty safe area.

[bound2TN]

Dear Friends:
I don't want to appear "obsessed" about this, but, I was wondering if there is a way of finding out how many times the police have responded to calls in a particular neighborhood. If I was planning on buying a house and there was a crack house across the street that was being raided weekly.... You get the idea.

Thanks