The Truth Behind America’s Crime Stats (Part 1)

Paul Boomer: 00:00:07

Welcome to Heroes Behind the Badge, the podcast that brings

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you the real stories of America's law enforcement professionals.

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Today we're diving into one of the most critical issues facing

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law enforcement and public safety.

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The disconnect between what crime statistics tell us and what Americans

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are actually experiencing on the streets.

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Our guest is Len Sipes a nationally recognized crime data expert with five

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decades in the criminal justice system.

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Len has served as a police officer, federal spokesperson, and

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award-winning public relations expert.

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He's traveled the country teaching law enforcement agencies how to

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control their message and get the truth out about what they do.

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What Len has discovered about crime statistics will shock you all.

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Politicians and media outlets point to declining reported crime rates.

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There's another set of data that tells a very different story, one that explains

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why Americans feel less safe than ever.

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This is part one of our conversation about the hidden truth behind

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America's crime statistics.

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Let's begin.

Craig Floyd: 00:01:07

You know, we're big into the defund, the police movement screwed

Craig Floyd: 00:01:10

up our nation, crime skyrocketed.

Craig Floyd: 00:01:14

Now we're refunding the police and, um, you know, giving them

Craig Floyd: 00:01:18

the resources they need to do their job, more cops, et cetera.

Craig Floyd: 00:01:21

Um, are, is there data or, or are you, you know, your expertise are, are you in

Craig Floyd: 00:01:28

consistent with that message that we're seeing an uptick in police uh, funding

Craig Floyd: 00:01:35

and more officers, and thus we're seeing now data showing c uh, crime going down.

Craig Floyd: 00:01:41

Is there good data to support that, uh, premise?

Len Sipes: 00:01:45

Uh, when it comes to data, it's always yes, no, and maybe so.

Len Sipes: 00:01:49

There is a little bit of evidence indicating that

Len Sipes: 00:01:54

police hiring is stabilizing.

Len Sipes: 00:01:57

Um, I did an article, uh, a couple months ago, um, per the, uh, Bureau

Len Sipes: 00:02:04

of Labor Statistics saying that we were 25,000 cops, uh, actually

Len Sipes: 00:02:09

police employees, uh, down.

Len Sipes: 00:02:11

Um, and you know, so we've lost tens of thousands of

Len Sipes: 00:02:15

police officers in the process.

Len Sipes: 00:02:18

Um.

Len Sipes: 00:02:19

I'm getting reports from all over the country as to cities not responding,

Len Sipes: 00:02:24

uh, to, uh, property crimes, um, taking a long time for police to show

Len Sipes: 00:02:31

up at, um, violent crime incidents.

Len Sipes: 00:02:35

Um, we still are hundreds and hundreds of police officers down.

Len Sipes: 00:02:40

Mm-hmm.

Len Sipes: 00:02:40

Um.

Len Sipes: 00:02:41

And in some cases some cities close to a thousand police officers down.

Len Sipes: 00:02:46

So where there are indications, uh, per data from the

Len Sipes: 00:02:50

Department of Justice that um,

Len Sipes: 00:02:56

you take a look at correctional statistics and, and we're now seeing

Len Sipes: 00:02:59

more people being placed in jail.

Len Sipes: 00:03:01

Um, correctional numbers are starting to reverse, uh, a long-term decline.

Len Sipes: 00:03:06

So there's obviously more activity going on now, and I think the system and the

Len Sipes: 00:03:12

country has taken a bit of a turn, but it's still not where we need to be.

Craig Floyd: 00:03:18

Okay, good.

Craig Floyd: 00:03:19

Okay.

Craig Floyd: 00:03:19

And what we thought.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:21

I was looking Len, uh, at, at your, uh, at your bio

Dennis Collins: 00:03:25

and I guess my question to you, is there anything you haven't done?

Dennis Collins: 00:03:29

You have certainly, uh, you have certainly been well, ex-police officer.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:33

Uh yep.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:34

You are an author.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:35

Yep.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:36

You're a podcaster.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:37

Yep.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:37

You're, uh, you were in the federal system.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:39

You're a retired federal senior spokesperson.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:42

I like that.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:43

Yep.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:44

And most important, you are recognized nationally as a crime data and you're

Dennis Collins: 00:03:50

an award, uh, a crime data expert, i'm sorry, and an award-winning

Dennis Collins: 00:03:54

public and media relations expert.

Dennis Collins: 00:03:57

I love it.

Len Sipes: 00:03:57

We, we traveled the country.

Len Sipes: 00:03:59

Um.

Len Sipes: 00:04:00

When we, when I first did a podcast, um, traveled to country teaching,

Len Sipes: 00:04:06

um, principally law enforcement agencies, but any government agency,

Len Sipes: 00:04:10

um, how to do podcast, um, how to do television shows, how to do radio

Len Sipes: 00:04:14

shows, how to put them on the internet.

Len Sipes: 00:04:16

We won a slew of awards for that.

Len Sipes: 00:04:19

Um, what I've been preaching to law enforcement.

Len Sipes: 00:04:22

Um, agencies is that you now get to control your own message and you

Len Sipes: 00:04:27

really do need, need to take that very seriously in terms of getting the word

Len Sipes: 00:04:30

out about what law enforcement does.

Len Sipes: 00:04:33

Uh, I'm sick and tired of seeing law enforcement being kicked to the canned.

Len Sipes: 00:04:36

Um, I really am tired of it.

Len Sipes: 00:04:38

The defund, the police move movement, um, was a pivotal issue for me.

Len Sipes: 00:04:44

Um, I, I, you know, have a lot of progressive friends.

Len Sipes: 00:04:48

You, you can't be in government without encountering, um, a slew of progressives.

Len Sipes: 00:04:53

And, uh, you know, there was a certain tolerance.

Len Sipes: 00:04:56

I just wrote an article, um, basically saying, uh, just that, that when it came

Len Sipes: 00:05:02

to the defund, the police movement, um, everything pretty much changed for me.

Len Sipes: 00:05:06

Um, I knew what was going to happen.

Len Sipes: 00:05:08

I knew we were going to lose thousands of police officers.

Len Sipes: 00:05:11

Uh, I've spoken directly to a lot of cops who uh, basically said, that's it.

Len Sipes: 00:05:15

I'm done.

Len Sipes: 00:05:16

Um, if you're gonna expect me to go out and risk my life for your benefit

Len Sipes: 00:05:21

and, and call me, you know, make me out to be less than a human, I'm done.

Len Sipes: 00:05:26

Sorry, I can go someplace else and make more money.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:28

As you know, uh, Citizens Behind the Badge, which is the sponsor

Dennis Collins: 00:05:32

of this podcast, Heroes Behind the Badge, that is our main goal, is to fight this

Dennis Collins: 00:05:40

defame and defund the police movement because we recognized five years ago,

Dennis Collins: 00:05:45

Craig Floyd called Bill Erfurth and I and said, Hey, we have got to do something.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:49

And Craig, of course, having the credentials as the, uh, CEO

Dennis Collins: 00:05:53

Emeritus of the Law Enforcement Memorial and the museum mm-hmm.

Dennis Collins: 00:05:56

He had the idea and we joined them and five years later, looks like

Dennis Collins: 00:06:02

maybe we're making a little dent, but.

Len Sipes: 00:06:04

We're making a little dent.

Len Sipes: 00:06:06

Yeah.

Len Sipes: 00:06:06

We're making a little dent.

Len Sipes: 00:06:07

We're not back to where we need to be.

Len Sipes: 00:06:10

And I'm just not sure that, um, the average police officer out there is

Len Sipes: 00:06:14

not, um, sometimes reconsidering, um, what it is that they wanted, want to do.

Len Sipes: 00:06:20

When I was a cop myself, um, there were plenty of instances where I said to

Len Sipes: 00:06:25

myself, you know, one little move on my part, um, in a very difficult situation

Len Sipes: 00:06:32

could end up with me in the front page of newspapers throughout the country.

Dennis Collins: 00:06:36

For sure.

Len Sipes: 00:06:37

Um, that it's impossible to go through years of law enforcement

Len Sipes: 00:06:41

without making a mistake or coming close to making a mistake.

Len Sipes: 00:06:45

Um, the society needs to understand that society needs to, I the overwhelming

Len Sipes: 00:06:51

majority of the cops that I've worked with, um, and I, you know, continue to

Len Sipes: 00:06:55

work with police officers throughout my career and law enforcement

Len Sipes: 00:06:58

agencies throughout my career.

Len Sipes: 00:07:00

You know, it is a difficult job to say the least, and it is almost

Len Sipes: 00:07:05

impossible not to make mistakes.

Len Sipes: 00:07:08

It is almost impossible.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:09

Sure.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:10

For sure.

Len Sipes: 00:07:10

Um, and, and people need to understand that.

Len Sipes: 00:07:12

I think the overwhelming majority of cops are good, decent human beings who'd

Len Sipes: 00:07:17

simply want to go home after their shifts.

Len Sipes: 00:07:19

To their wives and children.

Len Sipes: 00:07:21

That's all they wanna do.

Len Sipes: 00:07:22

They're not out there to create problems.

Len Sipes: 00:07:24

They're not out there to, to harm anybody.

Len Sipes: 00:07:27

Uh, all you have to do is go along to get along.

Len Sipes: 00:07:30

It's, it really is just that simple.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:33

No, and again, that's our philosophy.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:35

And, and, and Craig has fought hard, as you know, for most of his adult life.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:40

Yes.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:41

In support of police, but today I think we wanna focus in on some,

Dennis Collins: 00:07:45

I know this bothers all of us, uh, Craig, myself, Bill Erfurth.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:49

We, we are bothered by this, this, I don't know, maybe it's a, a mix up or something.

Dennis Collins: 00:07:56

It seems that when you read the headlines or listen to media, the crime stats

Dennis Collins: 00:08:01

are down and yet they're down three 40.

Dennis Collins: 00:08:04

Crime stats are down, but yet the public.

Dennis Collins: 00:08:08

From what I can see is more fearful than ever of crime.

Dennis Collins: 00:08:12

Yes.

Dennis Collins: 00:08:12

How, Len, you're an expert in this.

Dennis Collins: 00:08:15

How can that be?

Len Sipes: 00:08:17

Well, look, uh, first of all, the average citizen does

Len Sipes: 00:08:20

not, and everybody I'm talking to right now, they understand this.

Len Sipes: 00:08:23

The average citizen does not pay attention to crime statistics.

Len Sipes: 00:08:26

The average person, what they see, taste, smell, feel, touch, that's

Len Sipes: 00:08:32

what guides them in terms of whether or not, uh, the, the, they have

Len Sipes: 00:08:36

a fear or concern about crime.

Len Sipes: 00:08:38

Right?

Len Sipes: 00:08:38

Uh, fear of crime, uh, per Gallup is at record levels and there's

Len Sipes: 00:08:41

multiple other pieces of research that basically says the same thing.

Len Sipes: 00:08:45

Now, I was on a forum the other day talking about this, and, um, so a young

Len Sipes: 00:08:51

lady, uh, basically said, uh, people who, who don't get the fact that crime is

Len Sipes: 00:08:57

down, um, are stupid, they're their fear.

Len Sipes: 00:09:02

They're stupid for, for how they feel.

Len Sipes: 00:09:05

Um, you know, I can't imagine anything more insulting, but I've

Len Sipes: 00:09:09

read dozens of articles from national publications who have essentially

Len Sipes: 00:09:13

stated, made the same statement.

Len Sipes: 00:09:15

Now they may not say stupid.

Len Sipes: 00:09:17

Um, they may use another more politically correct description, but you know, you

Len Sipes: 00:09:22

have major media out there saying, why the hell can't people understand that crime

Len Sipes: 00:09:27

is down and their lives are now safer?

Len Sipes: 00:09:29

You have people out there basically saying we've never lived doing safer times.

Len Sipes: 00:09:34

Um, I think that's pure malarkey.

Len Sipes: 00:09:36

Um, you know, I'm not going to be in a position to criticize the average

Len Sipes: 00:09:41

American in terms of how they feel.

Len Sipes: 00:09:44

That bothers me deeply.

Len Sipes: 00:09:45

The other part of it is the National Crime Victimization

Len Sipes: 00:09:48

Survey, which is 50 years old.

Len Sipes: 00:09:51

Nobody seems to know what the National Crime Victimization Survey is.

Dennis Collins: 00:09:55

In fact, when I was doing my homework, the

Dennis Collins: 00:09:57

that came up and I've been, yes.

Dennis Collins: 00:09:59

You know, I've been around law enforcement my whole life.

Dennis Collins: 00:10:02

I've supported law enforcement, my daughter's in law enforcement.

Dennis Collins: 00:10:05

I've never heard of that before.

Dennis Collins: 00:10:06

And I'll bet you 99.9% of Americans have never heard of of that.

Dennis Collins: 00:10:11

Could you explain that to us?

Dennis Collins: 00:10:12

Okay.

Dennis Collins: 00:10:12

And why that makes a difference.

Len Sipes: 00:10:14

So I became, decades ago, the senior specialist for crime

Len Sipes: 00:10:17

prevention and crime statistics for the Department of Justice's clearinghouse.

Len Sipes: 00:10:22

And, and when I walked in, um, I sat down with people from the Bureau of

Len Sipes: 00:10:26

Justice Statistics and say, would you please explain to me what the hell the

Len Sipes: 00:10:29

National Crime Victimization Survey is?

Len Sipes: 00:10:31

Yeah.

Len Sipes: 00:10:32

What is that?

Len Sipes: 00:10:33

Yeah.

Len Sipes: 00:10:33

So in any event, it is a 50-year-old survey.

Len Sipes: 00:10:37

Uh, the United States Department of Census said it is the principle source of

Len Sipes: 00:10:42

crime statistics for the United States.

Len Sipes: 00:10:45

It surveys people 12 and over, uh, in a panel design every six months, and it asks

Len Sipes: 00:10:52

them a very action oriented questions.

Len Sipes: 00:10:54

It doesn't say.

Len Sipes: 00:10:55

Have you been robbed?

Len Sipes: 00:10:57

It's they ask, has somebody taken something from you through

Len Sipes: 00:11:00

force or threat of force?

Len Sipes: 00:11:02

Right?

Len Sipes: 00:11:02

They use very action oriented words, so there's no doubt that the

Len Sipes: 00:11:06

National Crime Victimization Survey is far more accurate than the FBI

Len Sipes: 00:11:12

crime statistics, far more accurate.

Dennis Collins: 00:11:15

That's interesting.

Len Sipes: 00:11:16

When you have 38%, which is recent US Department of Justice Data,

Len Sipes: 00:11:21

38%, we're talking about cities now.

Len Sipes: 00:11:23

38% of violent crimes being reported to law enforcement in urban areas.

Len Sipes: 00:11:29

The overwhelming majority of what it is that people are getting in

Len Sipes: 00:11:33

terms of reported crime statistics, um, is, is a huge under count.

Len Sipes: 00:11:39

So to make a long story short.

Len Sipes: 00:11:42

We've just had a 44% increase in rates of violent crime through the National

Len Sipes: 00:11:50

Crime Victimization Survey for the last two major reporting periods.

Dennis Collins: 00:11:55

Did you say 44%?

Len Sipes: 00:11:57

44%.

Len Sipes: 00:11:58

It is the highest, i've been studying crime statistics for decades, and it

Len Sipes: 00:12:03

is the highest increase in violent crime that I've ever encountered.

Len Sipes: 00:12:09

Wow.

Len Sipes: 00:12:09

Undoubtedly, 44%.

Paul Boomer: 00:12:12

Part one of our eye-opening conversation with crime data Len Sipes.

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As you've heard, there's a massive gap between the crime, statistics,

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politicians use and what's actually happening in America's communities.

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Next.

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In part two, we'll explore how this statistical manipulation

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affects real policy decisions.

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Why the media isn't telling the whole story and what it means for the

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future of law enforcement in America.

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You can find more of Len's research at analysis@crimeinamerica.net.

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His work is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what's really

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happening with crime in our country.

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If you believe in supporting our nation's law enforcement officers, visit

Paul Boomer: 00:12:50

us at Citizens Behind the Badge.org to sign our declaration of support.

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Follow us on social media and share this episode.

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The Truth About Crime Statistics needs to be heard.

Paul Boomer: 00:13:01

Remember, our law enforcement officers are doing their jobs with fewer

Paul Boomer: 00:13:05

resources and less support than ever.

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They deserve the truth to be told about the challenges they face

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and the critical role they play in keeping our communities safe.

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Join us next for part two of our conversation with Len about the hidden

Paul Boomer: 00:13:20

truth behind America's crime crisis.