Public Safety: Cooking the Books on NYC Crime: Arrest Avoidance as Statistical Strategy

The phenomenon of “arrest avoidance” to protect statistics. In high-stakes precincts, officers may be discouraged from making arrests that could lead to a spike in reported crime or that would require extensive “bag of shit” paperwork and supervision. The “fake reports” and “lack of reports” described by the rank-and-file are not merely administrative errors; they are the output of a system designed to prioritize the appearance of public safety over the reality of justice. The “impotence” of …