Chicago, America's murder capital MORE violent than thought

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Chicago Police Department counted each attack as a single incident
But under Illinois state guidelines they should have counted every victim
It means that attacks with multiple victims went under reported
CPD spokesman said they had been recording incidents this was 'for years'
Chicago was U.S. murder capital in 2012 surpassing New York for first time

Published: 11:37 EST, 8 April 2014 | Updated: 13:08 EST, 8 April 2014

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Chicago Police failed to report a quarter of all victims of aggravated assault and aggravated battery in their 2012 crime statistics, the city's Inspector General has discovered.

The force was found to have breached state guidelines by only counting each attack as a single incident, when in fact they should have counted each victim.

It means that all those attacks which resulted in multiple victims went under reported.

Chicago Police failed to report a quarter of all victims of aggravated assaults and aggravated batteries in their 2012 crime statistics, the city's Inspector General has found

Inspector General Joe Ferguson looked at sample of 383 assault-related crimes, 72 of which resulted in a total of 95 victims, meaning that 23 victims, or 24 per cent, went unreported.

The Inspector General's report read: 'CPD undercounted aggravated assaults and batteries on its I-UCR (Illinois Uniform Crime Reporting) submission by 24.2 per cent in a sample of incident reports examined by OIG.

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'The undercount occurred because CPD based its crime count on the number of incident reports rather than the number of offenses against each victim, as required by the I-UCR Program.

'For example, if an incident resulted in three individual victims CPD would have counted this as one offense when, according to I-UCR, it should have counted it as three. '

While there is no suggestion that the department made the errors intentionally, it is a further blow for the city, which in 2012 year claimed the unenviable title of America's murder capital.

A spokesman for the CPD said aggravated assaults and aggravated batteries had been recorded in that way for years.

In their response, which was published at the bottom of the IG report, the department said it now intends to correct the figures, bringing them into line with Illinois state guidelines.

Chicago was found to be the murder capital of America in 2012, with more reported crimes than New York, despite having only a third of the population

The statement read: 'Upon learning of the reporting issue, CPD immediately launched an in-depth review of every single aggravated assault and aggravated battery that occurred during 2012 and 2013, to correct the tracking of these crimes and bring the city into stricter adherence with reporting standards.

'This in-depth review is ongoing, and where errors in victim-level reporting exist, they will be corrected.

'As soon as CPD was made aware of this issue, remedies were immediately put in place to ensure even greater precision in the future.'

In 2012 there were 500 murders in Chicago up from 431 in 2011, according to FBI crime statistics, meaning the city overtook New York for the first time, despite having a population only a third of the size.

As a result of the increase, the Inspector General also considered auditing the Police's homicide statistics to evaluate the possibility that some homicides may have been downgraded.

But of the 6,260 total homicides reported, 6,241 were found to be non-negligent murders, with only 19 listed as involuntary manslaughter or reckless homicide.

The Inspector General said they decided against an audit due to the small number of crimes categorized as involuntary manslaughter or reckless homicide in addition to a heightened public scrutiny of the number of reported murders.