[Scan-DC] Statistics

[Steve Rigby]

   I post this information strictly as a "For What It Is Worth" item 
because I think it is interesting and informative.

   After having a discussion with an editor of a newspaper located in 
Fairfax County, a county supervisor and having a couple of subsequent 
correspondences with the Fairfax County Police Chief, I can make the 
following observation in all honesty.  When the FCPD releases 
statistics and incident figures to the public, those figures do not 
represent all such incidents that have taken place in the county, even 
though they are claimed to represent such.  By this I mean that, for 
instance, statistics on the number of bank robberies "in Fairfax 
County" really means only those robberies wherein the FCPD was the 
primary responder.

   In FCPD "speak," the term "in the county," or "within the county" 
does not mean what is said, even though those terms are used by the 
FCPD and the county government in the dissemination of information to 
the public.  Such terms actually mean what I stated in the last 
sentence of the previous paragraph.

   Any incidents that take place in the county wherein the FCPD did not 
have the role as primary responder are not included in figures for 
incidents that occurred "in the county."  This includes anything that 
takes place in any of the towns or cities in the county, and also 
includes incidents that take place in other areas such as Ft. Belvoir 
or in areas associated with Dulles Airport as well as other unspecified 
areas of the county.

   The Chief stated the obvious, that being that the language used by 
the FCPD in reporting crime and incident figures and statistics can, in 
his own words, "...be
easily misinterpreted."

   There apparently is no entity of the county government that compiles 
statistics and figures for the county as a whole, and all such figures 
and statistics as released by the county government follow the 
guidelines already described.

   The result of this policy is clearly going to result in figures that 
are considerably lower than if the term "in the county" really meant 
"in the county."

   Steve