Crime Hype

For police officers and judges, dishonesty is a firing offense.

Without integrity, none would trust them.

So why are these law enforcement officials lying to hype crime?

Eugene’s acting Police Chief Pete Kerns and a gaggle of local judges have declared that the area suffers from a crime wave of apocalyptic proportions. The local mainstream media has repeated their crime claims without question, causing much confusion.

Here are the documented facts:

According to the FBI, Eugene’s violent crime rate has fallen 53 percent and its property crime rate has fallen 43 percent since 1997. Here’s the data table from the U.S. Department of Justice’s official online database:

Using the same DOJ database, out of 398 cities with more than 100,000 people, Eugene ranks 280th for violent crime rate and 90th for property crime rate.

Congressional Quarterly ranked 385 cities based on overall crime rate using FBI data. Eugene ranked 224th highest:


So why are they hyping crime? Well, the police have been pushing for huge budget increases for more than a decade. The judges apparently listen more to the police than the evidence.