d. In recent years there has been an increase in reporting mainly due to more resources available in the community, education for officers and the public. Often these types of crimes are not reported until they become life threatening or fear of further abuse. Since domestic violence is still to some an embarrassing situation for families they often go unreported. What are the problems that occur due to these unreliable statistics? When there is a substantial decrease in crime the public perceives that the local police agency as keeping the crimes down in their neighborhoods. Just as when there is a large increase in the number of crimes the public perceives the police as not doing their job in controlling the situation. The public generally relies mostly on the media for their information regarding crimes in their neighborhoods. The media tends to only broadcast certain information about these occurrences in an attempt to boost the ratings for the news station. The public doesn't get an unbiased opinion of what actually occurred or a chance to know all of the facts. In reality, crimes that are reported are only a fraction of what in fact occurs. Crime statistics do not actually reflect patterns in crime or a risk of victimization and are of little or no use to the public in determining the crime rates for any given neighborhood. Since crime statistics only represent reported crime and not actual crime occurrences they should never be considered exact at any time. Statistical information is available upon request from the government and should only be considered an estimate of the true crime rates. Word Count: 1906...
