Dec. 23--Insurers say the number of theft claims in the Hub has climbed slightly in the past five years, even though police crime statistics show fewer burglaries and larcenies in the city over the same period.
The apparent discrepancy raises questions about how many victims are actually reporting break-ins -- and how convenient police make it to file those reports.
Police in New York and Chicago allow victims to report items stolen by talking with police over the phone, giving cops a larger but more accurate picture of criminal activity. Boston police said they do not allow phone reporting for thefts, but they will send a cruiser to meet a victim.
Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of police science with John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said police are in no hurry to get multiple reports of a virtually unsolvable crime that will skew their data negatively.
"Police departments aren't exactly putting out a marquee sign that says 'Please make sure you report your property crime. There's no wait!'" he said. "The harder they make it to report a crime the fewer instances they are going to have. You have to ask, 'Are the police making it easy to report? Are they encouraging crime reporting?'"
Deirdre Cummings, legislative director with MassPIRG, a consumer advocacy group, said the numbers might not line up because cops and insurers don't use the same definitions, and policy-holders are not always required to file a police report to submit a claim.
"When some people have thefts occur, they don't necessarily call the police unless they think the police are going to get it back," Cummings said. "Unless the city and the insurance company are using the same definitions of theft, it's not surprising that those two data sets don't add up."
Boston police stand by their data, which show drops in burglaries and larcenies since Boston police Commissioner Edward F. Davis took over as commissioner in December 2006.
According to insurance data provided by the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, there were 7.4 theft claims per 1,000 insurance policies in 2006, while in 2010, that number went up to 7.7 claims per 1,000 policies.
In the same time period, Boston police said there were 2,427 fewer incidents of burglary and larceny citywide, a drop of 11.5 percent.
"We take the integrity of our statistics very seriously and have no reason to believe that our numbers are inaccurate," police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.
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