With so much commotion across the county lately concerning police officers, it’s nice to see our local law enforcement showing honesty, even if it can have the appearance of hurting.

Vicksburg police and the Warren County Sheriff’s Department both report crime statistics to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program as they occur.

“The reporting from various law enforcement agencies across the state is done on a volunteer basis,” Armstrong said. “Agencies report if they want to report and what they want to report.”

The FBI cautions against using the figures to rank communities, and here’s why.

Last September, the honesty of Vicksburg police was used against our community by an online ranking of “Mississippi’s Most Dangerous Cities.” Vicksburg was ranked sixth most dangerous city in the state. Why? Not because Vicksburg is in actuality more dangerous than the state’s other cities but because we follow best practices.

It should also be noted that the online list was published by Home Security Shield, a company whose profit is earned by selling home alarm systems. People who feel absolutely safe in their own homes typically don’t purchase alarm systems, so inducing fear — though it might not be their intention — is in their best interest.

So why isn’t the data reliable for rankings? Take sex crimes for example.

“Although they are sexual based crimes, half of those crimes are not actually true after an investigation,” Assistant Chief Johnnie Edwards explained. “At the initial onset it is reported as a sexual based crime and after an investigation is concluded we can’t go back and change that number.”

Because of problems with using the data that is not the same for every community in the state, Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said the only way to truly gauge crime reduction is to compare Vicksburg’s numbers from year to year.

We did just that this week and discovered that the city’s crime rate has been steadily declining in virtually all categories except burglary since 2002.

That’s the truth, and what Amrstrong has been telling our community all along. Vicksburg of course has its problem with crime, and VPD is working to quell them.

“Crime prevention is no more than community policing, and we have already seen an increase in the number of Neighborhood Watch Programs,” Armstrong said. “We have more than 20 programs in place now and we look to increase that number.”

Community policing is all about trust, and what better way to gain the trust of the community than telling us all the truth, even if the truth is not exactly what we wish we heard.