Earlier this year (2010) the Christian Security Network (AKA Jeff Hawkins)published a report entitled "Crimes Against Christian Organizations in the United States"  with great fanfare. This "First of its Kind" report touted references like the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.  We do not know how many of these reports have been sold to at $5.00 each, but we were very concerned with the integrity of the data attempting to show trends in church crimes.

Statistical analysis is difficult work and should not be taken on by the weak hearted or technically challenged. Doing a credible analysis of a database of millions of records takes a lot more than just Googleing Church Crime everyday and making a spreadsheet of the few hundred articles.

In a in-depth study of the information published in the CSN report and in several articles about the study we have found numerous aberrations of information questioning the report's value and accuracy.

Inconsistencies in the method of data collection:

1. Mr. Hawkins indicates in one article that he uses FBI's Uniformed Crime for one of its sources for the 2009 report.

We ask the Justice Depart:

 When will the flat file data for 2009 be available?

Fact from the Justice Department/FBI:

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s 2009 master files will not be available until sometime after the first of next year (2011); it’s usually around March, but please check back in late January to see where we are with data processing at that time. 

Question: How can Mr. Hawkins gather data that does not exist at the time of his report.

2. Mr. Hawkins indicates that the FBI does not categories info on church crime incidents so that they are identifiable. It takes a lot of research and technological know-how but the data is there, at least in part.

Explanation of the files and data available:

There are two separate data collection methods for inclusion into the FBI UCR program.

1. The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
2. The FBI's Summary Reporting System

Both are combined into one massive database. Unfortunately some of the data in the NIBRS is converted to "Summary" data and strips out various fields, like the location field.

In the original NIBRS file structure there is a field called "Location", which is where the offense occurred.

Location code "4" is Church/Synagogue/Temple

Fact from the Justice Department/FBI files:

As you read, there are several master files for each year.  Most hold the data of those law enforcement agencies that contribute their UCR data via the traditional Summary Reporting System.  Only the data of agencies that contribute to the UCR Program via the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) reside in the NIBRS Flat File.  For example,  in 2008, approximately 39 percent of the Nation’s law enforcement agencies participating in the UCR Program submitted their data via the NIBRS, and the crime data collected via the NIBRS comprised approximately 26 percent of the data submitted to the FBI. (That’s why we qualify the NIBRS Flat File as not yet being nationally representative.)  Although NIBRS was intended to eventually replace the Summary Reporting System (because it’s an automated system that offers more detailed data), the national program currently converts the NIBRS data to Summary data to continue the long-running series for data publication.  It also includes the converted data in the master files that contain Summary data.  Therefore, the statement concerning the representation of crime data in the NIBRS Flat File applies only to that file.  Other master files such as the Return A or ASR Arrests Master File include all of the offense and arrest data—as well as converted NIBRS data as applicable—from all of the agencies that participated in the UCR Program.

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The 2008 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) files are available on-line and for anyone who has the technical and database analysis experience. Fortunately we have both resources.

The NIBRS data for 2008 held 5,542,421 crime reports. Per the above this equates to only 26 percent of all the data received by the FBI. This is why the FBI admits (read above) that the NIBRS data is not nationally representative off all the crime by itself. However the native NIBRS data is the only data we have that we can separate church crimes from others, before the conversion to Summary data where the location codes are lost.

Here is the data analysis of the NIBRS for 2008 for location code 4 - Church/Synagogue/Temple.

Here is the Christian Security Networks 2009 data:

Although the data are from two different years it is obvious from even the most casual observer that  the data are extremely different and the percent of criminal activity per section are vastly different also.

No, crime did not drop by 94% between 2008 and 2009. The CSN data is just seriously flawed and should not be given any credence as to any national trends or amount of church crime.

The below comparison below show the incongruent finding of the CSN report as compared to factual NIBRS data supplied by the FBI. We have summaries some of the classifications to hopefully give the CSN report a chance at some accuracy. 

Conclusion:

With only 26 percent of the nation's data being reported by the NIBRS, there could be  74% MORE crimes than even the 24,445 church crime incidents reported in 2008.

The 2009 NIBRS will be out in 2011 and we will analyze the data when it is published.

The Christian Security Institute (CSI) has the knowledge and professional resources to deliver accurate and factual information. CSI will be continuing to bring you the latest information on Church Crime Statistics as the data for 2006-2008 is currently being analyzed for comparative analysis.