16 American Police Beat: January 2018 OPINION/EDITORIAL Chairman & Publisher: Cynthia Brown Chief Executive Officer: Sarah Vallee Editor-in-Chief: Mark Nichols Creative Director: Stephen Kamifuji Advertising Sales: Dave Quimby Digital Manager: Jeremy Lange Office Assistant: Brendan O’Brien Social Media Manager: Shirley Miller Special Correspondent: Brianna Dunn Keep them in the dark Call the security guards! If the data doesn’t say what you want, just dump it ★ ★ I f you know what you know about crime and that’s that, you can stop reading right here. “I don’t need some fancy pants col- lege professor to tell me nothin’,” is sometimes the way some people respond to those that study crime and crime rates for a living. The fact that federal authorities have recent- ly dumped about 65 percent of the data that used to be available to citizens and criminol- ogists alike is not sitting well with the experts. Politically speaking, keeping people in the dark about crime rates makes sense. That way when someone says “crime is through the roof and the homicide rate is at an all-time high” on the campaign trail, it’s difficult to point out the lie without data to back up assertions to the contrary. Now, an organization representing more than 5,000 criminal justice scholars and researchers have issued a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying why less data is bad for law enforcement and public safety. For the past 80 years, the FBI has released a comprehensive report that criminologists rely on to analyze and understand crime trends. This year, that report contains 64 percent fewer data tables than the 2015 version. Imagine what that kind of accounting could do for homicide clearance rates at a local law enforcement agency. You just don’t count 64 percent of the homicides and the clearance rate looks amazing. Peter Wood authored the letter on behalf of the Crime & Justice Research Alliance, which is a joint project of the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. “This has significant implications for the justice research community that relies on this trusted information for a broad range of research activists, including evaluation and as- sessment of trends in crime, arrests, clearance rates and related matters,” he wrote. “Given this administration’s public statements about addressing violent crime, victims’ rights, the opioid epidemic and terrorism, it is unfortu- nate that the 2016 report removes key data about these topic areas.” “Of course, we are in the midst of a very seri- ous opioid epidemic,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminology professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, who studies drug-related homicides and arrests. “The 2016 report makes it impossible to continue to monitor trends.” “The policies that tend to work are based on good, reasoned, accurate, reliable evidence,” he said. “Without that evidence, we are in a policy blind alley.” And maybe that’s the whole idea. When politics trumps everything else, those in pow- er can create a narrative that works in their interest. It sure seems like a lot of that going on these days. if that’s being a security guard for a wealthy suburb, so be it. A lot of cops are earning big money run- ning private security businesses on the side. But in a time when municipal budgets are getting slashed and squeezed, don’t expect this to go unnoticed. After all, if some people are more comfort- able having private security guards handle service calls, isn’t it reasonable to assume we’re spending too much money on polic- ing? It basically comes down to a duel between equal protection under the law and the idea that wealthy Americans should be able to get extra layers of police protection that others do not because they can’t pay the fee. For some that’s a big financial opportuni- ty. For others it’s a terrifying glimpse at the future of American law enforcement. I f you’ve got a lot of scratch, odds are you don’t have much use for police. Well yeah, if your spouse is brutally murdered, you might want a homi- cide detective looking into that. But for the more common public safety stuff like noise complaints, vandalism and complaints about “teenagers hanging out who look like they’re up to no good,” wealthy communities are in- creasingly using private security companies, not local law enforcement agencies, for law enforcement services. In the wealthy Seattle suburb of Laurelhurst, residents can pay just $200 annually for po- lice protection from The Security Patrol. The fact that the security guards include off-duty Seattle cops is beside the point. What’s at issue here is the future of the tra- ditional public safety model. No one disputes that cops have a right to earn off-duty. And A huge thank you goes out to anonymous subscriber that sent this image in. Even though there was no information included, it looks like a really cool trading card for a police K-9 unit officer somewhere in Florida. If you know who put these together, let us know. Cop trading cards are very common but the production value of this one is on a another level. ABOVE: The look on his face is priceless. Three mastiffs were rescued after getting stuck in a storm drain recently, according to the Jef- ferson County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado. I’m not even mad Baxter. Actually I’m impressed! How in the hell did you even squeeze in there with the other two?