Crime stats on framinghamma.gov web site

 

As promised by FPD, crime stats of the past 4 years for Framingham are on the city web site as of a month or so. The revamped web page is designed to have easy access to pertinent information anyone can access.  While studying the web site looking for the crime stats for the life of me, I couldn't find them. I had to ask Mike Cannon where they were. So, follow along, if you go to https://www.framinghamma.gov/ you'll see the main page. Look to the far left top for GOVERNMENT.   

Click POLICE https://www.framinghamma.gov/135/Police and you will find on the left side, 7 different searchable categories. 

Click Transparency/Accountability 

https://www.framinghamma.gov/3091/Transparency-Accountability which brings you to 11 different searchable categories, then click "call for service by year", a PDF will pop up. You should see 4 pages with 125 categories by nature. After studying the list, I discovered 4 major crimes categories are not on the list. They are Murder, sexual assault, drug arrests and rape. 

I wrote to FPD and asked why those categories are not on the list. I got back a reply a few days later with the murders and drug/narcotic violations for years 2020, 2021, 2022. The main list goes back to 2018 and 2019. 

So, if you’re still following the bouncing ball, the main list with all 125 different categories listed you may ask yourself what some of the categories mean. So, I wrote to FPD and asked if they would put on the page, a glossary of terms, as I am sure not everyone knows (except law enforcement) what they mean. I also asked if the 4 missing categories would be added to the main page. Their reply so far was nothing would be added.

The whole point of the latest police reform was to increase accountability and transparency. It is the law of the land now. And to refuse to adhere to full transparency of the actual crime statistics so the public can see, is not keeping with the spirit of the law and does nothing to build trust in our police force.