Top Officials Welcome State Audit of City Crime Reports

Responding to disclosures that city police record fewer crimes than citizens report, top Ventura officials said Monday that they welcome a review by the state Department of Justice and would change crime-reporting procedures if the auditors found a problem.

The Times reported Sunday that Ventura police have failed to record hundreds of minor property crimes each year since 1995, apparently violating FBI reporting guidelines and skewing statistics used to gauge crime-fighting success.

“I think we need to bring the [police] chief in and talk about this,” said Councilman Ray Di Guilio. “And we may need to have [auditors] come in to make sure our reporting is consistent with the rest of the county. We need to compare apples with apples. There’s a lot of interest in crime reporting in this county.”

Local cities often cite crime statistics to polish their images in recruiting new businesses. Indeed, Ventura County routinely ranks as the safest urban area in the West, with Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks as the nation’s safest large cities.

Ventura had the highest crime rate in the county in 1994, but now ranks well below Oxnard and Santa Paula, and its rate of offenses is approaching the county average.

In July 1995, Ventura police stopped immediately writing crime reports or routinely dispatching officers when citizens called in about petty thefts and minor burglaries. Instead, the department asked those crime victims to come to the station to fill out a report, or to complete and return a report that police mailed to them.

But many people never bothered to officially report the crimes. And that is part of the reason that Ventura’s reported crime has dropped almost by half from 1994 to 1999.

No other local city uses such a procedure, instead following FBI guidelines that say agencies participating in its Uniform Crime Reports program should write a crime report each time they receive a citizen complaint.

Police Chief Mike Tracy has said his department changed its reporting system because it wanted to spend more money fighting serious crimes, not counting minor ones.

City officials said Monday that Tracy does a good job on a tight budget.

“Looking at it from the chief’s standpoint, he’s trying to spend time and resources on crimes they have a chance of solving,” Mayor Sandy Smith said. “And I am certain this change was not in any way to make crime look better than it is. They weren’t hiding anything; it just didn’t come out in a big neon sign.”

Smith said Tracy explained to the council in an e-mail over the weekend that the Department of Justice--which audits crime reporting compliance for the FBI--approved the 1995 change and reassured the city last week that its reporting procedures complied with FBI standards. If auditors decide a change is needed, the city will quickly comply, Smith said.

“If they say we need to go back to the old style of reporting,” the mayor said, “we would do that automatically.”

A Department of Justice spokesman said Friday that, while state auditors did reassure Ventura early last week that its procedures were fine, officials have since decided to take a longer look.

“Our goal would be that if they’re not meeting all requirements, then they would be in the future,” Justice Department spokesman Michael Van Winkle said. Van Winkle said state auditors know of no other California police agency that uses the same reporting procedure as Ventura.

“We’re going to wait for the results of a thorough review before we make a [final] judgment,” Van Winkle said Monday. He said he did not know when auditors would contact Ventura.

Lt. Gary McCaskill, a police spokesman, said his department has heard nothing yet.

City Manager Donna Landeros said Ventura officials need to know for sure what the Department of Justice’s position is before they consider a change in reporting procedures.

“It sounds to me like they’re the ones who need to figure out if we’re in compliance,” she said. “We’ll just wait to hear from them. And we’ll ask to have it in writing, so there’s no misunderstanding in the future.”

Some local law enforcement officials said they thought it was good for the public to know that Ventura police follow a different reporting standard than other local agencies.

“We don’t do it that way,” Oxnard Police Chief Art Lopez said. “We’re honest with the crimes we report.”