Federal figures released this month say that the number of violent crime offenses reported in Davenport fell in 2021 compared with the year before.
The reported number of violent offenses still were a bit above what they were in 2019, but below levels reported in 2015-2017.
The FBI data said that 684 violent crime offenses were reported in Davenport in 2021, down from 779 in 2020.
For its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the FBI says violent crime is composed of four offenses: Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
Violent crimes involve force or threat of force, the FBI says.
The number of reported property crime offenses in Davenport fell from 4,140 in 2020 to 3,796 last year, according to the FBI data.
Each year, crime analysts look to the FBI report to try to increase their understanding of trends across the U.S., but it’s not easy, as you’ll see if you read the couple notes I’ve left at the bottom of this article.
This year’s FBI report for 2021 was released on Oct. 5, but it presents a bigger challenge in interpreting crime trends than normal because the agency is overhauling the way it collects data. As a result, about 40% of police departments across the country, including some of the nation’s biggest, didn’t report crime figures to the FBI for 2021.
The Brennan Center for Justice has a good overview of the situation here, but essentially what’s happened is this:
For years, the FBI has maintained two data reporting systems, the Summary Reporting System and the National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS. Beginning in 2021, the FBI transitioned to the NIBRS system. But because some police agencies weren’t ready for the switch, 2021 data didn’t get reported in as many places.
In the Quad-Cities, however, major police agencies did report NIBRS data for 2021, and in Scott County law enforcement officials have been reporting this data for decades.
Police departments in Rock Island, Moline and East Moline began reporting NIBRS data in 2021, according to the FBI.
If you want to explore the figures, you can go to the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer here.
In Davenport, the number of homicide offenses reported in 2021 – 10 – was the same as the year before. The number of reported aggravated assault offenses declined from 555 in 2020 to 468 last year. The number of reported rape offenses went up, from 77 in 2020 to 108 in 2021, according to FBI figures.
The number of reported motor vehicle theft offenses fell in 2021, from 487 in 2020 to 460 last year. That’s still significantly higher than it was in 2019 when 363 offenses were reported, but sharply lower than in 2017. (Note, I use the word “offenses” rather than incidents, because the NIBRS system allows for the reporting of multiple offenses per incident.)
In Bettendorf, 47 violent crime offenses were reported in 2021, up from 37 the year before. The number of property crime offenses reported in 2021 was 612, up from 573 the year before. Reports of vehicle theft offenses rose from 53 to 65, the data said.
The trend in Bettendorf was up, but the number of offenses still is sharply lower than in Davenport when accounting for population differences.
Across the river, Rock Island had 241 reported violent crime offenses in 2021 and Moline 255, according to the FBI data.
As for other Iowa cities: Cedar Rapids, which has a larger population than Davenport, reported 466 violent crime offenses, significantly lower than in Davenport. However, in Des Moines, which has a bit more than twice the population of Davenport, the FBI data said that there were 1,344 reported violent crime offenses in 2021, roughly double that of Davenport.
A couple notes about all these figures:
The FBI data only accounts for those crimes that are reported to law enforcement. As the Brennan Center says, the figures can’t account for those offenses that are not reported.
To quote from the article I linked above:
The National Criminal Victimization Survey, published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, seeks to account for the difference using a national survey to estimate the rate at which people experience non-fatal crime and violence. This survey shows rates of non-fatal violent crime declining in 2020 and increasing very slightly in 2021.
I would also point you to this article by The Marshall Project, which notes says the victimization survey reports only about half of violent crime victims report it to the police.
Here’s another point to consider: The Marshall Project says crime data is not a “neutral measure.”
“Individual enforcement decisions by police departments can make some crimes seem more or less common,” it says.