<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Friday, March 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Longview, Medford say data wrong in national crime ranking

The Columbian
Published: February 16, 2015, 12:00am

By one measure, Medford, Ore., and Longview don’t just have a crime problem, but a big one.

Both landed on the Huffington Post’s and USA Today’s list of cities with the most explosive growth in violent crime, a whopping 80 percent and 67 percent, respectively.

But the East Coast number-crunching that gave the two Northwest cities such a dubious distinction has ruffled some feathers: The data’s wrong, their police departments say.

Though both agencies concede their cities’ violent crime rates rose, the analysis blows the increases out of proportion.

“Things are not always as they appear,” said Medford Police Chief Tim George, who has launched a review of the violent crime data for the city of 78,000 to set the record straight.

For example, he said, 125 simple assaults were misclassified in 2013 as aggravated assaults and included incidents in which relatively harmless objects such as shoes or water bottles were thrown at someone. The agency did the same with threats where the person wasn’t actually able to follow through on them.

That could throw the analysis by 24/7 Wall St. — which ranked Medford behind only Bismarck, N.D., for the collective growth of murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults from 2009 to 2013 — on its side. Longview, population 37,000, didn’t fare much better with its No. 4 ranking.

The financial news website relied on data that should never have been reported to the FBI, George said. That includes the 125 simple assaults, which accounted for 28 percent of the violent crimes Medford police reported in 2013.

Medford police will not have a true accounting until the audit is complete in a few weeks, but George expects the findings will paint a more accurate picture of his city.

“It’s going change our ranking dramatically,” the 38-year veteran of the Medford Police Department said.

It’s important to note that if the 2009 aggravated assault numbers are just as inaccurate as the 2013 numbers, the city’s ranking is unlikely to change.

The FBI’s data for Longview, meanwhile, simply don’t match the numbers the department sent to the state, according to Capt. Deborah Johnson of the Longview Police Department.

“I do not know how they got that information,” Johnson said. “I’m still trying to understand.”

And like the Medford Police Department, Johnson said, her agency needs to ensure that crimes are classified in line with federal definitions.

Data questions aside, such reports can create perceptions that could have economic implications for communities, experts say.

“It can have a pretty large impact,” said Brian Renauer, chair of the criminal justice department at Portland State University. “If you want to expand your business into that area … you’re going to look at this and say ‘Boy, I’m not sure this is the best place for us to set up our business.'”

Medford officials, including its city manager and the head of its chamber of commerce, don’t think the ranking will have a lasting impact. But Ryan Deckert, president of the Oregon Business Association, says communities do have something to lose if their reputations are compromised.

Out-of-state companies view Oregon’s stability as a major selling point, Deckert said, so anything that challenges that image could do harm.

“We don’t want to see any of our bigger cities in the USA Today other than in keeping with that narrative of the constant waters of Oregon,” he said.

George and Johnson both acknowledge upticks in the violent crime rate since 2009, which they attribute mostly to the availability of drugs and unemployment. Though the increase stands in contrast to a 14 percent drop nationwide, both claim their cities are safe.

For example, Medford didn’t have a single homicide in 2014, George said.

Brad Hicks, president of the Medford/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, concurs: “I can tell you that living in Medford doesn’t feel like I live in a high crime community.”

Johnson was just as categorical about her hometown.

“I live here, I grew up here … I raised my family here,” she said. “I don’t have concerns about my family living in Longview.”

Loading...