The Columbia Police Department released a new public-oriented dashboard where people can access crime statistics in August.

South Patrol Assistant Chief Mark Fitzgerald says that context matters, and how you count the beans changes the numbers.

"We really don’t know what the underline crime rate is in the city, we have no idea," Fitzgerald said.

The dashboard has only been available for a couple of months as a way to increase police transparency for the public.

The National Incident Based Reporting System - or NIBRS - is the national standard for law enforcement crime data reporting. According to Fitzgerald, the data shown on the dashboard is underreported.

"We don’t know what’s not reported to us," Fitzgerald said. "The relationship between the police and the reporting or victim p

See Full Page