Why did crime numbers change after Lawton council meeting?

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - On Wednesday, the City of Lawton clarified crime statistics presented at a city council meeting the day before, explaining data discrepancies and presenting new numbers.

The clarification came after 7News reported on crime numbers given to city council, and initial confusion between Lawton Police Chief James Smith and Mayor Stan Booker.

READ: Lawton Police Chief: Crime down overall, larceny increasing

“Despite previous reports, the Lawton Police Department is seeing crime decrease in several major crime categories,” said a Wednesday press release. Those categories did not include murder: the press release said homicides increased from 2021 to 2022, stating police had located a suspect for all cases but one.

There are significant differences between the reports given to the council Tuesday and the one released by Caitlin Gatlin, the City’s communication manager, on Wednesday. Those differences were especially seen in categories like larceny, aggravated assault and burglary. For example, one report said there had been a 25.5% decrease in rape statistics, but Wednesday’s press release put that decrease at 6.6%.

The City attributed the confusion to changing systems, saying the original Uniform Crime Report (UCR) system categorized and tracked crimes differently than the State Incident Based Reporting System (SIBRS). Lawton police switched from UCR to SIBRS in January of 2021 due to a state mandate and more useful statistics, according to a press release.

The City essentially combined UCR’s numbers from the last half of 2020 with SIBRS’ numbers from the first half of 2021: “LPD collects stats based on the fiscal year beginning July 1 and ending June 30. The first half of the 2020/2021 fiscal year was completed through the UCR, while second half was completed through SIBRS,” said the press release.

KSWO 7News has compiled a list of the differences between the report given at Tuesday’s city council and the press release from the City of Lawton on Wednesday. The documents from Tuesday’s city council meeting were also posted in the original article, and all are available below for readers to view.

It should be noted the Tuesday report describes “Crime Code/Description” while Wednesday’s press release defines them as “Offense Categories” rather than specific penal codes. All of the percentages in Tuesday’s report also had an asterisk saying the numbers may be skewed, except for larceny, which had a note saying numbers were definitely skewed.

Similarly, murder and non-negligent homicides were said to have decreased by 8.3% between fiscal years in Tuesday’s report, while Wednesday’s press release said homicides increased from 11 in 2021 to 15 so far in 2022. However, those numbers cannot be meaningfully compared with this data set, as Tuesday’s report looked at fiscal year and Wednesday’s press release looked at calendar year.

Difference (%) between FY 20/21 and FY 21/22

July 2020 to June 2021 (fiscal year)

July 2021 to June 2022 (fiscal year)

Original Documents: LPD statistics from Tuesday

Original Documents: OSBI statistics from Tuesday

Original Documents: Wednesday press release from City of Lawton

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