PRESSURE TO MANIPULATE CRIME DATA WORRIES POLICE

PHILADELPHIA -- Senior police officials around the nation are concerned
that the sharp drop in crime in recent years has produced new pressure on
police departments to show ever-decreasing crime statistics and might have
led to incidents in several cities in which commanders have manipulated
crime data.

While Austin police say they're confident local crime statistics are
accurate, there have been charges of falsely reporting crime statistics in
Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta and Boca Raton, Fla., resulting in the
resignation or demotion of high-ranking police commanders, this year.

In Boca Raton, for example, a police captain, with the knowledge of the
police chief, systematically downgraded property crimes such as burglaries
to vandalism, trespassing or missing property, reducing the city's felony
rate by almost 11 percent in 1997.

Experts say they believe these incidents don't mean that the nationwide
drop in crime since 1992 is illusory. But they are beginning to question
whether politicians, the media and the public should attach so much
importance to the regular release of crime figures.

In Philadelphia, the city has had to withdraw its crime figures from the
FBI's national system for 1996, 1997 and at least the first half of 1998
because of underreporting, downgrading serious crimes into less serious
incidents and sloppiness.

Philadelphia's size -- it accounts for 2 percent of all slayings in the
United States -- means the removal of its numbers could skew the crime rate
for the whole nation. But Harlan McEwan, deputy assistant FBI director,
said he was confident the bureau had statistical methods to adjust the
national rate even without Philadelphia's figures. The 1997 crime figures
will be released this fall.

Gil Kerlikowske, the former police commissioner of Buffalo, N.Y., said the
pressure on police to prove their performance through reduced crime
figures, with promotions and pay raises increasingly dependent on good
numbers, "creates a new area for police corruption and ethics."

Kerlikowske suggested there has been too much focus on the eight major
crimes counted by the FBI in its crime index: the violent crimes of murder,
rape, robbery and aggravated assault along with the property crimes of
burglary, theft, stolen cars and arson.

"There is too little focus on lesser crimes, which are not counted by the
FBI," Kerlikowske said, "like drug sales, prostitution and graffiti, which
are more meaningful to the overall quality of life because there is so much
more of them."

An Austin police official said Sunday she is confident local crime numbers
reflected reality.

"The number of crimes reported, we feel very strongly, are just right on
target," said Sue Barton, director of research and planning for the Austin
Police Department.

Before sending its crime reports to the FBI and the Texas Department of
Public Safety, the department checks its numbers against reports that track
crimes by geographic area. Any discrepancies can be checked, Barton said.

In addition, in 1995 Austin became the first large U.S. city to establish a
crime-reporting system categorized by incident. DPS and FBI experts helped
Austin set up the system, providing extra scrutiny of the department's
procedures, Barton said.

In several of the cases that have plagued other cities, police commanders
have downgraded felonies such as aggravated assault and burglary, which are
reported to the FBI, to misdemeanors that are not reported to the bureau.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney discovered in July that Capt.
Daniel Castro, the West Philadelphia district commander, had exaggerated
reports of crime reduction. Castro reported an 80 percent drop in serious
crime in the past year. A review found that Castro had downgraded many
robberies, burglaries and thefts to cases of "missing property." Castro was
removed from his command.

In New York, Kenneth Donohue, head of the police department's
transportation bureau, was forced to resign this year over allegations of a
scheme to reclassify incidents on the subway as street crimes. Police
Commissioner Howard Safir said the manipulation had gone on for years and
had underestimated crime in the subways by about 20 percent.

The Atlanta City Council and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are
investigating accusations by a deputy police chief that two other deputy
chiefs pressured police to write off unsolved crimes and misclassify
violent crimes as nonviolent when preparing the city's crime statistics for
1996, the year the Olympics were there.

In Boca Raton, tips from police officers led to an investigation by the
Palm Beach County state attorney's office last month that found that Capt.
Jim Duke had systematically downgraded felonies, mostly property crimes, to
misdemeanors "for the direct purpose of not having to report these crimes"
to the FBI.

During 1997, Duke, who was forced to resign, downgraded 385 felonies, 11
percent of the city's total of 3,635 serious crimes. In one case originally
labeled a burglary, a thief stole $5,000 in jewelry and did more than $25,
000 in damage, the prosecutor said, but Duke reclassified the case as
vandalism.