Columbus police say they have underreported crime data to FBI since 2013

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The Columbus Division of Police has been underreporting crimes to the state and the FBI for about a decade, the department revealed on Friday. 

The underreporting began in 2013, after the department switched to its current incident-based reporting system, which allows law enforcement to better classify multiple crimes that occur within a single incident. The FBI also transitioned to an incident-based reporting system in 2021. 

“It’s great that we were relatively early adopters, but that does not come without some hiccups,” said Deputy Chief Tim Myers. 

The implementation resulted in an unnoticed system error in the submission process of the department’s data to Ohio’s Incident Based Crime Reporting System, which reports the statistics to the FBI. This resulted in 165,000 cases out of 1.9 million, or 8.4%, not being reported over the past decade. The department discovered the issue during a recent internal review, Myers said. 

“Some cases have fallen through the cracks for administrative reporting for the state,” Myers said. “This does not affect casework. This is purely a statistical issue, this is not an operational issue.”

The errors in the system resulted in three years, 2013 through 2015, where the department reported data to the state and FBI that said crime had dropped, when it was actually rising. However, after that point, while not all the data was accurate, it was consistent with overall trends. 

"Statistics nationally with the FBI are only as good as we’re getting, and if we’re not getting the information, the total picture, it's hard to hang your hat on those statistics," retired FBI agent Harry Trombitas told NBC4.

Myers emphasized that the problems with reporting data to the state and FBI did not affect the amount of cases police investigated or data pulled directly from Columbus police’s system. The police department itself, and local news organizations, typically use data directly from the department. However, reports and studies, such as analyses exploring the municipalities with the highest crime rates or cities where crime dropped, often use FBI data. 

Of the 165,000 cases, about 100,000 were initial reports and about 65,000 were supplemental reports, which may include the discovery of new evidence or an arrest in a previously existing case. 

“The reason that’s important is that those initial reports, if they don’t get submitted to the state, that means that crime statistic, that incident doesn’t get reported to the state at all,” Myers said. “If the initial report was submitted, then we know from a statistical perspective from the state that that crime occurred. What is missing is the update to that case, which very often could be case clearance information.”

Although Columbus experienced more crime than what was published at the state and federal level during this time frame, the amount of cases solved by Columbus police was also likely underreported due to supplemental reports not being submitted. 

"If you were to go to the state website today, you would see very low clearance rates when in fact we have solved many more of those crimes," Myers said. "They just didn't get reported to the state."

The 100,000 initial reports that fell through the cracks detailed 119,000 offenses, about 42,000 of which were classified as “part one offenses,” which are considered serious crimes. 9,408 were violent crimes such as murder and rape, and the other 32,7111 were property crimes such as burglary and motor vehicle theft. 

“The reason it accrued to that level is because the internal report that we had put in place to monitor the submissions was not measuring what we needed it to measure,” Myers said. 

Since crime statistics are constantly updating for a variety of reasons, including a crime being reclassified, resolved or a new crime being entered into the database, it makes it difficult to spot issues with the numbers, Myers said. 

The department has tracked the problem and implemented a fix, according to Myers. Columbus police are currently working through reporting the backlog of pending cases, and are prioritizing violent crimes first in that process. 

"I’m grateful that [Chief Elaine Bryant's] commitment to data-driven policing has helped to identify this underreporting, and that it is swiftly being rectified," Mayor Andrew Ginther said in a statement. "I’m committed to continuous improvement, and I thank the department for their transparency and action to address this matter.”

Police departments are not required to report their crime data to the FBI, and do so voluntarily. In 2023, over 16,000 law enforcement agencies submitted data to the FBI through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, covering a combined 94.3% of the country’s population. 

The program has published crime statistics since 1930. Data on the FBI’s website is available going back to 1985, and the Columbus police department has provided data since then, at least.