By Robert Redding Jr. The Macon Telegraph

Macon Police Chief Rodney Monroe has halted the release of the city's monthly crime statistics in order to examine more than half the numbers.

Monroe said he plans to mark some of the statistics unofficial and reclassify other incidents as police generated arrests.

He said he's been advised of the problems the city has had with uncounted carjackings and purse snatchings and has requested the city's May and June crime data be revised, because he doesn't want anyone to think the department is "cooking the books."

"We don't want anyone to accuse us of trying to hide something," Monroe said of the city's Uniform Crime Report statistics - used by the police department and FBI to gauge where and what crimes are occurring.

Macon police spokesman Sgt. Robert Carr has said the May and June UCR statistics would be handed out by the end of this month, but monthly reports had not been released as of Monday.

Vicki Metz, a spokeswoman for the GBI, which oversees the UCR program for the FBI, said even the state is in the dark as far as the city's recent crime rates are concerned.

"We have not received them yet," Metz said, noting Macon is not alone in not getting the figures in to the state. "We generally would like for them to be turned in before the fifth of the month, but it is not unusual for them to not be turned in by this time."

In December, Macon police started a more than two-month mission to correct coding errors they said caused the city to misclassify or overlook 76 robberies since 1999. The revisions came in light of a Telegraph investigation into why incidents were reported in the department's own news releases, but didn't show up in statistics.

In January, former Police Chief John Vasquez and two of the department's former crime analysts blamed the undercounts on lax supervisors simply rubber-stamping reports. The problem, the department has said, was human error.

"If we say one month we have 112 robberies and later we have less, it may be because somewhere an incident was reclassified for the final UCR statistics," Monroe said last week. "We have to go back and make sure an arson is still an arson ... We have to go back and certify those crimes, anything else is unofficial.

"The first thing about any daily, weekly or monthly crime reporting is that it is unofficial," Monroe said, "The only official data is what we submit to the UCR in March."

Monroe also said part two crimes, such as suicides, forgeries, fraud, vandalism, DUIs, and obstruction cases also would be reclassified as police initiated crimes instead of actual offenses.

"Our enforcement may have gone up 400 percent, but that doesn't mean crime has gone up 400 percent," he said. "It is not an offense because it is police generated ... we are generating that and that's a good thing."

Monroe said the department also is close to filling the crime analyst position that has been open for about 10 months.

"I think we have a couple of people that are qualified," Monroe said. "We are also looking to create a system that everyone can use.

"We should never fall into a position where we only have one person that knows how to do it again."

http://www.macontelegraph.com/content/macon/2001/07/31/local/monroe.htm

-- Anonymous, July 31, 2001