LAPD Crime Digest Still No-Show on Web Site

• It sounds like you're talking about two different things here. One is greater transparency into the department and the other is the statistical analysis of crimes in the city. The LAPD still needs oversight. Things have improved drastically since the days of the Gates insanity, but I think it was premature to pull the consent decree. That and a new chief and I won't be surprised to see at least some backsliding. As to the statistical analysis, I'd be surprised if it were out. I don't know how long it took them to do the 2007 analysis, but I can't imagine they turned it around quickly. That's a shitload of data there. Part I crimes are tracked more closely, sure. You can get the YTD numbers on on the Citywide Compstat for the last 3 years right now. But the thing about these reports is that they delve into the minutiae. Those are some pretty thinly sliced numbers. There were 13 juvenile forgery arrests in 2007, 115 adult arrests for weapon violations that July. Sworn officers took 53,773 hours of Military Leave. Civilians 9,149. Read the whole thing and you're head'll pop off. I think the possibility that they're hiding something in 2008 is a bit of a stretch. Aside from really boring reading, I don't think we're going to find anything particularly surprising when it comes out. Hey, 77th Street sucks this year, too. There's a shocker. Now if they incorporated more of the transparency into that report there might be something to hide. Maybe I'm missing it, which wouldn't surprise me, the 2007 report's 132 pages, but I'm not seeing Use of Force investigations, or numbers of complaints against officers broken down by division, bureau or anything else. Not that I'm sure that would necessarily show anything useful. Statistics lack context. Why did people complain? Why is there a drop in reported rapes in one area and a rise in another? Why does North Hollywood have more purse snatchers than Devonshire but fewer pickpockets? You're right, it is vitally important information, but I can't see pulling all those numbers from all those reports from all those disparate divisions happening quickly. A year doesn't seem out of line for that kind of analysis.

• Sounds like this Times editorial was written by Robert Greene, whose previous jobs were for the Republican-owned and skewing Met-News (wholly owned subsidiary of Republican party activist Roger Grace) and the Weekly, so no wonder you like this one, as it's skeptical of Bratton as this paper is, as expressed in many (many many) articles. (Greene's pieces tend to be pretty obvious, and since editorials aren't signed does give the Times' editorial section a rather schizo feel, veering back and forth from day to day. I also suspect he wrote the one today advising the city to ignore the City Council on the medical cannabis issue and just send in the cops. In marked contrast to the majority of Op Eds and editorials in that paper and elsewhere.)

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