I really, really, REALLY hope that some local reporter *will* take Rich's research and use it as basis to investigate further. When the only category of crime where KCSO is underperforming is narcotics, and when they are underperforming to such a statistically notable degree - even as everyone agrees that drug crime is the biggest problem we have -there are some hard questions that somebody in the "real" media needs to be asking.

I'm sure that KCSO would like to make the case that the 250,000 people who live in their jurisdiction (plus the many others who pass thru every day due to our location the on I-75 corridor) have such a low rate of criminal narcotics activity that it translates into a low rate of KCSO drug busts....

No drug crimes = no need to arrest people very often for drug crimes, right?

Bizgrrl, I'm glad you asked. Your question cuts to the heart of the KCSO position. They will claim that the low rate of violations is due to their successful enforcement efforts creating an actual low level of activity.

However, as I pointed out in the article, there's no other class of violation among those I looked at that show such a marked difference between Knox County and Hamilton County. Those other criminal acts provide a benchmark for the level of criminal activity in their respective counties. When all of those levels correspond fairly closely, and the only one that doesn't is drug/narcotics violations, the correct interpretation of the data is not to assume an unexplained decrease in activity in only one category, but a difference in the level of enforcement. That's why I included that data.

So, while it is theoretically possible, the data does not support it.

Also, I note that you include the numbers for possession of drug paraphernalia in your table. I omitted them because I'm only interested in busts involving actual possession, and even more, with intent for resale. The DNE violations are irrelevant to actual trafficking.