CRIME STATISTICS WELCOME NEWS

The recently reported decline in the crime rate for both Moore County and
North Carolina is great news in anybody's book -- as long as we remember
that statistics may not tell the whole story.

As an extreme example, the murder rate for Moore County can be said to have
declined by 62.5 percent from 2003 to 2004. That sounds pretty dramatic.
But all it really means is that there were only three murders last year, as
opposed to eight the year before, when there happened to be a couple of
horrendous multiple slayings. The numbers are so small as to be
statistically meaningless. And, since most murders are totally
unpredictable crimes of passion, a year-to-year fluctuation in their number
is more an act of God than anything law-enforcement agencies can point at
with pride.

Another factor is that crimes aren't plugged into the statistics unless
they're reported. And experts suspect that the influx of undocumented
aliens has produced a corresponding increase in undocumented crimes. A
Hispanic immigrant who gets beaten up or robbed may be unlikely to report
it for fear that doing so might get him deported.

Then there is the exponential growth of Internet crimes, whose victims are
usually not even located in the same jurisdiction as the perpetrators, and
who may go undetected and uncaught in any case.

But even once all that has been said, the 11 percent drop in reported
crimes in Moore County is something in which we all can take pride and
pleasure, regardless of whether we can take full credit for it. Not only
murders but also robberies, burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts
went down last year, though by less dramatic margins.

Sheriff Lane Carter attributes much of the decline directly to a concerted
campaign by his department and others to curb trafficking in illicit drugs.
And that seems to make sense, considering how much the existence of that
one evil contributes to a proliferation of others. As Carter put it,
"People don't steal to eat. They steal to buy dope. They steal to support a
habit."

The Sheriff's Department can't claim sole responsibility for the dwindling
of violent crime. (Rates also went down in all of Moore's incorporated
municipalities, which have their own police departments.) But the
Carter-led campaign to reorganize the department, bolster manpower,
increase night patrols and lock up more drug dealers clearly seems to be
working. He deserves the county's gratitude.