Is crime increasing in Colombia? The police say yes, the numbers say no

“Run for mayor and fix this city.”

This is the call to action from a Columbia Police Officers' Association (CPOA) Facebook post on September 6th. The post was the first in a series calling on residents to run against Columbia's incumbent mayor and city council.

According to the CPOA post, violent crime is “exploding.” However, the Missouri State Highway Patrol's crime database shows that the city's violent crime rate has not changed significantly compared to last year.

Don Weaver serves as General Counsel of the CPOA. He said the first Facebook post was intended to highlight the increase in crime that Columbia officials believe they are noticing.

“Gangs are shooting on our streets almost every day,” he said. “There are criminals who have become bolder. There are rapes and attempted rapes, even in broad daylight, robberies and murders.”

Photo courtesy of the Columbia Police Officers' Association via Facebook

Mayor Barbara Buffaloe said she believes she has also noticed a slight increase in violent crime in Columbia. But she also claimed that CPD had a 100% clearance rate – meaning all cases were closed through an arrest or extraordinary circumstances such as a victim's refusal to cooperate. She said both figures are crucial to understanding the bigger picture of crime in Colombia.

“That’s why I’m going to the police chief and asking for more current numbers, because even one incident can increase that percentage significantly,” she said.

But numbers from the Missouri State Highway Patrol contradict the CPOA claims. KBIA compared violent crime data from the MSHP database against CPD's internal data, focusing on four violent crimes classified by the FBI: murder and non-negligent homicide, aggravated assault, sexual assault and robbery.

The numbers show that crime has not increased dramatically. CPD recorded just 10 additional violent crimes from January to September of this year. MSHP — which gets its data from local police departments across the state — recorded eight more.

Weaver said CPOA did not use data to inform its contribution.

“The message CPOA wants to convey is that crime is too high,” he said. “Whether by various measures it is the same as last year or lower is irrelevant. It’s too high.”

Year-over-year crime data shows that violent crime in Colombia fell from 2021 to 2023, meaning the 2024 data needs more context: Is this year an outlier or the start of an upward trend?

While the numbers show that violent crime in 2024 is at the same level as previous years, there is another problem: the numbers reported by different authorities that track violent crime in Colombia do not agree.

Artwork by Aminah Jenkins

As of 2021, MSHP in Columbia has registered more cases of aggravated assault and sexual assault than the city's own police force. And MSHP only logs data provided to it by other agencies, meaning the information comes directly from CPD.

Lt. Eric Brown of the Missouri State Highway Patrol Public Information Office said local agencies often have different laws than the FBI's definitions, meaning there is not, in his words, a “one-to-one correlation between the two.”

Artwork by Aminah Jenkins

Artwork by Aminah Jenkins

Artwork by Aminah Jenkins

Kyle Ward, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Northern Colorado, said the move to a new federal database could result in different numbers.

The National Incident-Based Reporting System, launched in 2022, provides further details on crimes. Ward says some agencies have been unable to update their systems due to limited resources, although there is no indication that this is the case at CPD.

Ward said Mayor Buffaloe's claim of a 100 percent clearance rate is unlikely, in part because of the many factors involved.

“There are so many things that come into play when it comes to the capabilities of the police, how many detectives, law enforcement officers or patrol officers they have at any given time and what mechanisms they have in place to go through a case,” he said.

Despite these discrepancies, CPOA has continued to do so Write posts citing increasing crime, including an Oct. 17 press release advocating the use of cameras to track license plates. In the face of criticism, CPD hired eight new officers from the state training academy in October.

Buffaloe, who is up for re-election in the spring, says only that the city is working to address officer retention issues and develop proactive initiatives to combat violent crime.