MPD responds to conflicting crime stats on The Murfreesboro Post

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MPD responds to conflicting crime stats

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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Editor

Posted: Saturday, May 15, 2010 12:01 am

Earlier this week the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released its annual “Crime in Tennessee” report.

The Post reported the statistics from the TBI report conflicted with those that were released earlier this year by the Murfreesboro Police Department.

“Both reports are correct and are simply a reflection of two different sets of data,” MPD spokesman Kyle Evans said.

MPD’s “2009 Crime Statistics,” which was released in January, reports 8,026 arrests for 2009 and said that the Murfreesboro Police responded to five percent more calls.

The TBI release, however, showed a decline in arrests made in Murfreesboro despite an increase in the number of arrests made statewide in 2009.

Evans said the reason for the difference in numbers is the reporting methods used by each agency.

“The MPD report is more comprehensive than the TBI report because it includes every arrest made by an MPD officer in 2009, whether those arrests were reportable to TBI or not,” Evans said.

Also, the TBI only gathers certain crime and arrest data from law enforcement agencies, not the comprehensive list used by MPD. The TBI also only counts one charge per person, so if an individual is charged with multiple charges only one, likely the most serious charge, is counted.

“For example, if a person is arrested for DUI, Implied Consent, and Underage Consumption, only the DUI would be reported to the TBI,” Evans said.

Tagged under Crime, MPD, TBI

Member Opinions:

By: truthandjustice1 on 5/15/10
It also counts the arrest made by the sheriff's office for MPD from warrants taken out by city residents andsent sent to the sheriff's office due to not being found or served by MPD. The sheriff's office makes the arrest but, they do not get the TBI credit for the arrest.

By: GladToBe on 5/16/10
Well MPD doesnt serve warrants.... Unless they run across someone with a warrant and anyways doesnt the sheriff's office have a sole department just for serving warrants.

By: thankyouforsmoking on 5/16/10
GladToBe: You are correct that the SO does have a Criminal Warrants division that does serve warrants. But, I believe there are only about 5 people in the department, and there's about 30,000 outstanding warrants in the county.

By: tennessean on 5/17/10
So if a person is arrested once by MPD and charged with multiple offenses, they count that as multiple arrests?