b'F E A T U R ECrime Metricsfor the People:Measuring Crime forSafer CommunitiesT hewaywemeasureThismethodcanunintentionallyis more visible and detected due to By Madison Charman and Samantha Scott, Barrie Police ServicecrimeinCanadaispenalizegoodpolicework.Forbetter policing. flawed.Traditionalpoliceexample, if the Barrie Police ServiceA similar issue arises when a large metrics focus on counting(BPS) forms a task force to tackle drug criminal and non-criminaland weapon trafficking, resulting indepartment store hires additional loss occurrences,equatingvolumewithmultiplechargesthroughproactiveprevention officers. With more resour-publicsafety.Thisapproachprovidesefforts,thedatawillreflectances,theydetectandreportmore aone-dimensionalviewofamulti- increase in crime volume. This doesincidentsofshoplifting, whichleads dimensionalissue.Crimevolumenotmeanmorecrimeisoccurring;to a sharp increase in crime statistics. measurements are susceptible to bothitsimplyindicatesthatthepoliceAgain, this creates the false impres-internal and external influences, leadinghave uncovered more offences duesionthatcrimeisworsening,when to skewed data. Sherman (2020) notesto targeted initiatives. Unfortunately,the reality is that more resources were thatpoliceeffortsconcentratedonathisspikeinchargescancreateput into detecting it. In both cases, the specificconcern,orprivateresourcesaperceptionthatcrimeisontheperceptionofsafetydeclines,even dedicatedtolosspreventioncanrise,leadingpeopletosay,crimethoughunderlyingcrimeratesmay artificially inflate crime numbers. is out of control, when in reality, itnot have changed at all.18 H.Q. Winter 2024/2025'