What are some of the problems with city-to-city comparisons?
The FBI requires that police agencies report major crimes, which include murder, rape, aggravated assault, burglary and theft. Reporting practices vary widely among police agencies. One city’s burglary may be considered a trespassing in another. Even locally, there are there are dozens of policing agencies in the five-county statistical mapping area of North Texas, and each agency reports crime differently. Some cities also have been caught or accused of cheating. (For example: A few years ago, Philadelphia police were caught routinely downgrading rapes to lesser offenses.
