Must read the entire comment!-----Why You Can’t Trust Crime Statistics- from comments

Why You Can’t Trust Crime Statistics

"7 Responses to “Why You Can’t Trust Crime Statistics”
Blackwing1 says: November 20, 2022 at 7:11 PM
"Back when we were living in the center of the Hive (Minneapolis) of the Soviet Socialist State of Minnesota, the insane collectivists of the city council passed a new graffiti law. 

Nobody really paid attention; I didn’t until I was bitten in the a$$ by it.
It provided a system in which to report graffiti. 

I’d been hunting up in northern MN and came home to find my garage (along with more than half the garages up and down my alley) defaced by gang tags. 

Naively I called in and reported. 

• It was only then that I learned that I had to wait 10 “working days” for the city to send out a crew to photograph the graffiti. 
• Once they had completed that (and they did NOT notify you of the completion) you had 10 calendar days in which to remove or cover the graffiti. 
• Failure to do so was a misdemeanor, subject to a citation and a $500 fine. 
• The city would then send out a crew to cover/remove the graffiti, and would then charge (on top of the fine) the “cost” of the city crew, not to be less than $500.

They basically created a system by which the victims of a crime were made to be criminals because of reporting it. 

As a natural result, two things happened.
1) People used the system to screw over anyone they didn’t like, with the city imposing the fines and “removal costs” on their personal enemies.
2) Reports of graffiti dropped like a ROCK.

• Well, gosh-golly-gee-whiz…with reports of graffiti reaching all-time lows in the city, it must have been the cleanest graffiti-free place on the planet! 
• No, graffiti and vandalism sky-rocketed, but there were still no “reports”.

Yet another reason why you can’t trust any statistic coming from the statist/collectivist/authoritarians running (what used to be) America’s cities."