Sometimes I get pulled down a research rabbit hole. This time, my attention was grabbed by story from The Seattle Times. The story claimed that the city I live in is ranked last in the state for safety. Really?

As a librarian, I am always encouraging students to critically examine everything they read. So when the story raised red flags, I followed it all the way to the end.

Turns out, the story was pushed to the Seattle Times by the National Council for Home Safety and Security, found at alarms.org. They are “a national trade association comprised of licensed alarm installers, contractors, and other relevant trade groups across the United States,” so even though they are a non-profit organization, their their aim is to sell home security systems.

The methods used were to add up the total number of violent and property crimes for the year, divide by the number of residents, and somehow adjust for the number of police officers. So while we had lower than average rates for both violent and property crimes, we also had a smaller number of police employees. I noticed that the phrase was “police employees,” not “police officers,” so I looked at the FBI Uniform Crime Report to check it out. When I looked at the statistics, my town has only one civilian employee, and 15 officers. That means 94% of the employees are officers, while in a neighboring town the percentage is 87% officers. I also looked at the crime and population statistics for the community south of mine, with more than twice the residents and almost three times the crime. If I were to create an equivalent police force based on population and crime, the force for my town falls short by less than one officer.

So how did my town end up at the bottom of the list, the least safe town in Washington? It’s still not clear, but I suspect it has something to do with selling security systems to frightened homeowners.

Do you have a question you want to follow down the research rabbit hole? We can work with you at the Research Help desk.