"F. George McDuffee" wrote:

Running a government, including enacting legislation, based on
"what they say," and "everybody knows" does not appear to work
any better than attempting to run a car company or bank.

A key feature in most socio-political arguments/discussions from
health care to gun control is the total lack of reliable and
consistent objective and measurable data.

Several federal agencies attempt to track this data, but it is
another case of GIGO [garbage in, garbage out].

Outside of "we have never done it that way before" does anyone
see any reason that law enforcement agencies from the smallest
municipal police department and sheriff's office on up should not
be required to submit *STANDARDIZED* reports, using common
formats and coding, of all reported crimes and citizen
complaints, with a page accessible to the public to report any
department that refuses to accept a report. More than likely
this would need to be backed up by criminal penalties for any
department/individual that refused or failed to accept/input
complete/accurate complaint/arrest data, or at the very least the
loss/embargo of any Federal funds.

Given the wide availability of internet access, and ISPs offering
"secure" web site hosting, this would seem to be a no brainer,
and would allow easy tracking of low
arrest/prosicution/conviction rates indicating possible
corruption and or incompetency, in addition to providing an
"early warning system" for pattern crimes and trends. As
accurate data was accumulated, available "data mining" technology
could be used to discover underlying patterns.


There is a simple way to get voluntary compliance. No federal money
to any city, for any reason if they doesn't comply. Make it easy on
them. Create the data entry and database software & give it to the
cities for agreeing to use the standardized system.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!