Tallahassee Democrat
Karl Etters
May 18, 2018

An audit of the Tallahassee Police Department’s crime stats – which for three years have put the capital city’s crime rate at the top of the state – found that there may be less crime than originally reported.

That’s why TPD says it’s changing the way it catalogs incidents.

Completed by the Miami-based PRI Management Group for $33,743, the audit found the number of incidents affecting annual data may have been incorrectly reported higher.

It found that the differences in definitions between the FBI – which compiles crime data annually – and Florida Statues may have been a reason behind the higher-than-normal crimes reported in Tallahassee city limits.

Human error and gaps in quality control of reports filed were also major contributors, the audit stated.

“The department was concerned about inaccuracies it found in its crime data and accordingly, was interested in undergoing an independent audit,” PRI wrote in its report. “This inherent conflict between Uniform Crime Report and statute-based crime reporting has led to significant crime count errors in Tallahassee.”

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