But Al Compoly, a long-time member of Asbury Park's neighborhood watch, suggested that to present a better face to potential investors, the police were underreporting crimes in the city, particularly the drug traffic, which he said was ravaging the city.
The investigation found "a concerted effort to deliberately underreport crime in the 81st Precinct".
The crime rate statistics are a bit of encouraging news for the East Orange Police Department, which in 2005 was jolted by the disclosure that a former chief had underreported crime numbers from 2003 and 2004.
Her story sheds light on why rape remains one of the most grossly underreported crimes. .
In March, a 95-page report confirmed former officer Adrian Schoolcraft's secret recordings that caught precinct officials urging officers to arrest citizens "doing a little more than standing on the street" and even underreport crimes.
Less than two weeks after a report found the UN mission in Darfur chronically underreported crimes in the war-torn region, UNAMID is facing fresh allegations that it failed to properly investigate the rape of dozens, if not hundreds, of women and girls in a small town.
The UN said two weeks ago that the problem of underreporting hate crime persists in Britain and the government's own hate-crime strategy sets out to increase the reporting of hate crime, acknowledging one of the biggest challenges to the police in tackling it," he said.
The FBI broadened its definition of sexual crimes in 2014, while the LAPD improved its crime reporting after previously underreporting violent crimes.
Data isolating the level of crime among undocumented immigrants are hard to come by, in part because, many suspect, undocumented-immigrant communities underreport crime, for fear of bringing law enforcement to their doors.
Families might be inclined to "shield the perpetrator from discovery" when the penalty is death, he said, leading to an increase in the problem of underreporting these crimes.
