Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Chats with law enforcement experts and leaders
Hi, this is Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith at the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association Podcast. You know I don't bring guests back very often, but I had to bring back this guest because this is somebody that I'm gonna confess, I depend on him virtually every week to do my job. He has a fantastic website, he's got a great newsletter, and nobody can explain or understand the reality of crime and crime statistics in this country like this man right here, Leonard Sipes. Welcome back.
Leonard Sipes:Thank you, Betsy. It's always a pleasure to be here.
Betsy Smith:So every time I get your your newsletter or every time I go on the website, know, I'm I am voraciously consuming what you're putting out there because, you know, the a big discussion in the country right now is crime. And we're hearing in some places crime is up, crime is down. We're also changing language. We don't say street gang anymore. We say people who don't like each other.
Betsy Smith:And so that's why I wanted you to come back and talk about some of that because it's just, gets, yes, it just gets silly. And you said something we were talking off camera that I just, I find so profound because I see it in my own day to day life with my friends. And that is the fear of crime. Talk about, before we talk about crime, talk about the fear of crime in this country and what that means to your average American.
Leonard Sipes:Well, it means that they're afraid. We just came off per gallop of record highs for fear of crime. It's down a little bit, but you have the great majority of Americans regardless of who they are and there is a separate survey on Democrats saying the great majority of Democrats have expressed very high rates of fear of crime. So you have the sense that cities are dangerous, areas are dangerous. So, you know, when you're talking about crime and some, you know, we'll get into a discussion of the FBI and reported crime statistics versus the National Crime Victimization Survey versus Gallups, data on fraud and computer, crimes, but it's fear of crime as a criminologist once said to me a couple years ago, it is the most important statistic that we're dealing with.
Leonard Sipes:It doesn't matter what Baltimore or DC or Memphis or any other city is saying in terms of crime statistics. It's how people feel about their own personal safety, the safety of their family, the safety of their children. That's what's driving this discussion America.
Betsy Smith:Now you have been doing this for nearly fifty years. You spent most of your time in government or government adjacent positions. And you have seen everything from crime in the 70s into going down in the 80s and then way back up in the 90s. The 90s spike that I saw as a law enforcement officer. And then of course nineeleven oh one and the quote unquote rise of terrorism.
Betsy Smith:You have seen all those ups and downs. Right. And where are we now when it comes to violent crime? And then I wanna talk about fraud and property crime because unfortunately, this kind of stuff was always politicized a little and stuff. A, I've been a cop since 1980 and our job wasn't so political back then as it is now.
Betsy Smith:And policing is political, prisons are political, and of course, is political. Where do we start in 2026?
Leonard Sipes:Okay. I will quickly jump in with the National Crime Victimization Survey, which has been around for fifty two years from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The United States Department of Justice had basically said that found rates of violent crime went up 44% in 2022, and chain and rates of violent crime have not changed for 2023 nor 2024. We're expecting 2025 data out in the next couple weeks for the National Crime Victimization Survey and from the FBI. The FBI is saying for the last couple years, one year, it went down 3%.
Leonard Sipes:The last year, it went down 4.5%. We expect a larger decrease. Independent analysts are basically saying that crime in cities is down considerably. And homicides are down. And which seems to be true.
Leonard Sipes:And shootings are down which seems to be true. So, it's very confusing to the average person when they discuss crime because they have this sense of fear in terms of everything that's going around them and then they're being told, well, per the US Department of Justice on one side, it's skyrocketing and on the other side, it's decreasing. You go to Gallup and talking about computer theft, computer fraud, or fraud across to the board and there are far more frauds out there than there are all FBI reported crimes put together. There are far more porch pirating, porch pirating incidents than all FBI crimes put together. Retail is complaining that their stats are going through the roof.
Leonard Sipes:We have an issue with cargo theft. It goes on and on and on. So explaining where we are in terms of crime to the average person or to the average reporter is difficult.
Betsy Smith:And I started quoting in the media, the National Crime Victimization Survey, probably about five and a half years ago. Thanks to you, by the way. And I would have reporters and commentators either look at me with a blank stare or they would say, but the FBI says this. Explain the difference to the FBI statistics. And there's been a big change there over the last couple of years.
Betsy Smith:Nationalist and the police report. Explain the difference between that and the actual national crime victimization survey.
Leonard Sipes:Okay. So we all know that the vast majority of crime is not reported to law enforcement. So there has to be and I mean the vast majority. Like, right now, about 80% of what we call crime is property crime. And according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 30% of that 80% are reported to law enforcement, which means that the overwhelming majority of crime is not reported.
Leonard Sipes:About 50% of violent crime, which is an increase from 42% of a couple years ago. So we seem to be reporting more violent crime. So what it does is a national survey based upon the census, and everybody knows what the census is. It's based upon a census style survey. And, basically, it goes out and ask people action oriented words as to whether or not they've been a victim of crime.
Leonard Sipes:When you have reported crime from the FBI, it is literally just that. It is crimes that somebody picked up the phone and called the local law enforcement and reported, and they recorded it and they send it into the FBI. So, you know, being the over you know, thirteen percent of urban rapes according to the National Crime Victimization Survey are reported in urban areas. Vapes and sexual assaults. That means that the overwhelming majority of these people are getting away with it because nobody's reporting it in urban areas.
Leonard Sipes:So we have a real problem with reported crime in this country both statistically and ethically and morally. You know, most crime, most violent crime, the perpetrator and the victim know each other. So, there's a huge difference between two friends sitting in a bar, one insults the other person's wife, the other person hits him with a beer bottle which is technically aggravated assault. That's probably not going to be reported to the police. They're probably going to see that as a personal matter.
Leonard Sipes:But there's plenty of stranger to stranger violent crimes that are also not being reported. So, you know, if we talk about crime, we have to talk about fear of crime. We have to talk about reported crime. We have to talk about the National Crime Victimization Survey. We have to talk about Gallup and other forums in terms of fraud and computer crime because it's, you know, it's on your desktop every single day and it's freaking a lot of people out every single day.
Leonard Sipes:People are literally losing their life savings. So, you know, criminals are basically saying to themselves, why should I do a stick up and and run the risk of being shot or run the risk of the police chasing me down when I can do this over my computer.
Betsy Smith:And it's not that hard. That's I live in a I live in an area where there's a lot of senior citizens. And Yeah. And remember back ten, fifteen years ago, it was the Nigerian prince, you know, email scam and stuff like that. And and, really, although some people fell for that, most people did not.
Betsy Smith:But now the scams look real. They I've gotten two already this morning
Leonard Sipes:Yes.
Betsy Smith:Of, hey. Your account is overdue and this and that. And and, it's it all looks very legit with with AI tools and and things you can make.
Leonard Sipes:You can't tell.
Betsy Smith:No. You can't. And I, you know, I think I'm pretty savvy, but
Leonard Sipes:I I gotta I get this email from Blue Cross Blue Shield, and it's basically saying we need your credentials blah blah blah. And it looks exactly like Blue Cross Blue Shield. It looks exactly like an eye contact Blue Cross Blue Shield through the numbers that I'm aware of, and they said, no. It's fraud.
Betsy Smith:Yeah. Amazing.
Leonard Sipes:It is amazing.
Betsy Smith:And now we're seeing so we're seeing an emphasis because one of the biggest victims of fraud in this country right now, or at least from what we're seeing, is is the American taxpayer via the federal government, right? The federal government and by way of our state governments are being hugely defrauded when it comes to various welfare and welfare adjacent programs. Right?
Leonard Sipes:But we all knew that was gonna happen when they released the billions of dollars of COVID money. They tried to prop up the economy and I'm sitting back in my easy chair and I look at my wife and I said, you know, five years from now, there are gonna be endless fraud cases because there's no way that they can track those billions of dollars. No way. So, but but you know, the average person, you know, they're scared to death of even logging on their computer. Marketing executives have said it's the death of email.
Leonard Sipes:If you put a link in an email, nobody's clicking on it.
Betsy Smith:No. I deleted immediately. I'm glad you said that. I feel better. Because I'm one of those people now.
Betsy Smith:If you're gonna send me a bill for something, don't send it via via email. I will never pay you.
Leonard Sipes:Exact well, it it it's so, you know, when I send out my articles, I send out the entire article. Yes. I don't ask anybody to click on anything. Here's the article. It's it's it's full right here but here's the URL in case you're interested in going to the website but nobody's clicking on anything.
Leonard Sipes:So advertisers and marketers are looking at each other and going, we're dead. Yeah. Because email marketing was at one time the biggest form of advertising whatever it is that you wanted to advertise and and now people are basically saying no there's no way I'm gonna click on your link.
Betsy Smith:No absolutely and and when you when you look at fraud like you said you know, when we talk about crime statistics and people's fear of crimes, very often those small, if you will, fraudulent crimes affect senior citizens or people who are already have a lower socioeconomic.
Leonard Sipes:Yes. That's exactly right.
Betsy Smith:And it's so heartbreaking to see. I've read articles in the last couple of days about older widows who have had their life savings wiped out because of a gold scam or this stock scam It's or unbelievably horrible.
Leonard Sipes:And so this is, you know, USA did it today, did an article that I assisted on a couple years ago about the the decline in bank robberies. And it's like, you know, the theme of that was crime has shifted. So the bank robber is saying, why should I take the risk of walking into a bank which is pretty well prepared for me? I can go on the dark web and learn and and rent, not even buy. I can rent the stuff that I need to scam people.
Leonard Sipes:So why do I want the 2 or $3,000 I'm gonna get from the bank when I can fleece this elderly widow of her life savings? And so crime is shifting from one form to the other as we speak.
Betsy Smith:And is law enforcement keeping up with that? Because I I and that's one of the problems. Right? If you get Yep. Defrauded, you call 911 or you call your local police fire, and you get a patrol officer who probably doesn't have the expertise.
Betsy Smith:Right?
Leonard Sipes:Doesn't have a clue. And considering the burden that police officers are under and considering how time consuming this is, we do know that the overwhelming majority of these frauds are not reported to law enforcement. So, again, it's it's this issue of reporting and people are saying, well, this is up and this is down. Well, how would you know if the overwhelming majority is not even reported to law enforcement?
Betsy Smith:And yet violent crime is a factor as especially as far as fear goes, you know, what we were talking about originally. Right?
Leonard Sipes:Sure. Oh, oh, absolutely. It it's violent crime that propels the great bulk of the fear. We are talking off camera about Baltimore City and it's gotten so bad that they're setting up checkpoints and literally fencing off parts of Baltimore to keep the rowdies out. And and so, you know, the average person sitting on front of their TVs in the city of Baltimore or outside of the city of Baltimore are going, is is this nuts or what?
Leonard Sipes:So, yeah. I mean, violent crime is is propelling the great majority of what we call fear of crime but you know, the fraud that's going on per Gallup, per the National Institute of Justice, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the numbers are just going through the roof. They're just going through the roof and so, again, when you're afraid to go into your log on to your computer, that affects you personally.
Betsy Smith:It's very isolating, especially for seniors, I think.
Leonard Sipes:Well, absolutely. Because they are vulnerable and not to sound sexist, but, you know, per fear of crime, women express more fear of crime than men. So, it is it affects women and affects their ability to to to live their lives comfortably. It affects seniors. The gentleman across the street from me is in his mid eighties and he basically said, I'm afraid to go on my computer and my computer is my connection to the outside world but you know, I'm not clicking on anything and I said, good.
Leonard Sipes:Don't.
Betsy Smith:Yeah, it's really it it it's really an unfortunate state of affairs that we now live in this wildly connected world where we can literally text with people across the world watch videos of people in other countries and connect with people. And yet because of fraud, so many people are just afraid to even connect with anybody. I'm I'm so cynical. You know, I'm I'm getting rid of everything. No WhatsApp, none none of that on my phone because there's so much fraud.
Leonard Sipes:It it it it is astounding. So I run my website on WordPress and come to find that what the bad people are doing is buying up very legitimate what we call plug ins, and they do certain things for website, makes it website operate a certain way. They're buying up existing plugins and they're corrupting them. And so what has already passed in muster with WordPress, you now can't trust what's on your own website because you don't know if somebody bought it and converted it into fraud. So, you know, this is why I back up everything.
Leonard Sipes:My, you know, I I I just I literally back up everything, and I have, malware bugged, bites on my phone and my laptop and my computer, which is a software to supposedly protect me from doing something stupid.
Betsy Smith:We all need that. So so let me switch gears a little. You know, and we're again, we were talking about this before the show. You know, to 2014 started this downhill slide really in, it started toward the death of proactive policing and 2020 basically put the last nail in that coffin of proactive policing. Mean, policing, you know, is one of the things that I used to teach and that I would talk to my own people about before we'd go out every day on patrol is that let's go hunt, right?
Betsy Smith:We're gonna hunt evil. We're gonna get the bad guy. We're gonna find
Leonard Sipes:the Get the bad guy.
Betsy Smith:And and now, private policing is almost dead, isn't it?
Leonard Sipes:It's not dead because there are certain areas of the country who are very bullish about proactive policing. So when I'm in Florida, the video is put out by the local sheriff's departments tickled me pink, because, you know, they're basically saying if you commit to this crime, we will find you. Yeah. And I support proactive policing a thousand percent. And you go to the Northeastern cities or the Midwestern cities or even the cities on the West Coast and they're not doing it.
Leonard Sipes:They're backing away from it because it is inevitable. Anytime you make a stop, you know this and I know this. Anytime as a police officer, when you make a stop, you're taking a risk. You have no idea what you're about to get involved in and I don't want to take up a lot of time but I remember stopping a person under very suspicious circumstances doing a proactive stop and he reaches over to his glove compartment to get his registration and there's a butt of a handgun And I pull out my weapon and tell him to freeze and he looks over at me and his arm goes out towards the gun. Because he's afraid of what I just did because I'm I've got a gun pointed against his head and I'm screaming no.
Leonard Sipes:Yeah. At the top of my lungs. So, I mean, you know, if I had shot him, it would have been a justifiable shot, but I would have to live with that for the rest of my life. That's proactive policing. That's what you have to deal with.
Leonard Sipes:You have you know, you're taking risks with every single stop, and there's a lot of chiefs and a lot of mayors going, well, why take that risk? Why? Because it drives down crime. Mhmm. And we have we have from from, you know, the National Academies of Sciences over a thousand studies that they looked at, it reduces crime.
Leonard Sipes:It is the definitive piece of research that we have within criminology. Nothing comes close to it except a a survey from Vanderbilt with 600 programs talking about whether or not criminal rehabilitation programs work, which basically they don't.
Betsy Smith:But but, Len, we're told that decarceration is the way to stop crime. Are you telling me that if that's not gonna work?
Leonard Sipes:Yeah. Here's a very controversial issue. El Salvador has built its mega prison and put 10 tons of people in prison. And the the this president in El Salvador is as as as popular as popular can be. Now, Costa Rica is doing it.
Leonard Sipes:Now, let's see. I think Colombia is doing it because of the new Colombian president has said, I'm going to move in this direction. So, you have Central America and South America moving towards incarceration because it's just a zoo south of the border In terms of the narcotics and the drugs and the crime and the violence. It is just out of control. Costa Rica.
Leonard Sipes:Yeah. Ten, fifteen years ago, Costa Rica was the place everybody wanted to retire to. Now, they have a problem. Now, they're emulating what's El Salvador is doing. So, for those people who are against prisons, they're sort of like losing the battle in in in not just Central America and South America.
Leonard Sipes:It's happening in the Scandinavian countries. They're basically going, this is getting ridiculous. It's getting out of hand especially youth crime. I'm not talking about juvenile crime, young person's crime. Now, they're building prisons.
Leonard Sipes:So, the people who are against prisons are basically on the wrong end of the discussion. I'm not saying everybody has to go to prison. There is 66% of the people coming in the prison are the males and the males are 90% of the prison population. Sixty six percent are there currently serving time for a crime of violence. If you include criminal history, it's has to be about 80%.
Leonard Sipes:So, basically, our prisons in The United States are now fully devoted to Von criminals. And you only have so much room. You can't send everybody to prison. So, that's the, you know, when I worked as the director of public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety, you know, I was told, you know, the thing that you do not screw up on is your budget because you don't want the governor's budget people calling you down for come to come to Jesus meeting. You have to live within your budget.
Leonard Sipes:And there's only so many beds available in our prison system.
Betsy Smith:And prison is expensive.
Leonard Sipes:Prisons are very expensive. So there's a lot of people who don't commit a violent crime who are escaping prison.
Betsy Smith:Right. Right. And and and we see that. And and I guess not to make this political but there is a political element to it. When you talk about statistically who fears crime, those same people are the ones that are at least talking about defunding the police or reimagining the police and mass decarceration, things like that.
Betsy Smith:Where is that disconnect?
Leonard Sipes:I don't have a clue. The most of the people I I I say this and and it's hard to fathom that probably 85% of the long form articles that I read every single day come from left of center organizations. They're the ones who who write page after page after page which reporters love and and artificial intelligence loves in terms of their views of the world. I am going to guess that 90% of them have never spent a day in the criminal justice system. So, they can believe whatever they want to believe.
Leonard Sipes:They wanna believe in the tooth fairy. That's their prerogative. But 90% have never had any contact in the day to day criminal justice system at all. They've never been cops. They've never been correction officers.
Leonard Sipes:They've never been paroled and probation agency. Never patrolled streets. They don't have a clue. But they will say we want as everybody else does a humane criminal justice system that is not so harsh and not so punitive. The average time served in The United States per the US Department of Justice is one year and three months.
Leonard Sipes:The average time served for violent crimes is a little over two years.
Betsy Smith:And yet we are told there are people. Oh, there's people in prison who got caught with a joint fifteen years ago and they're still there and and
Leonard Sipes:They're not.
Betsy Smith:Which is which is I know. It's nonsense. But people
Leonard Sipes:We we got rid of them alone. That. They can believe whatever it is that they wanna believe. So it it's a a philosophical debate but with the average American expressing very high rates of fear of crime, they can believe whatever they wanna believe and they can put out whatever it is that they wanna put out but they're going to lose from a political point of view. So, I would imagine conservatives are saying, yeah, you go right ahead and talk about defunding the police and and cutting the prison population in half which is what Joe Biden would that was his official platform as he ran for president.
Leonard Sipes:You can say whatever it is that you wanna say, but you're going to get blasted by the average American citizen.
Betsy Smith:Gad Sad talks about suicidal empathy. You know, he he wrote a book about it. And that's one of the things that infamously we have been seeing cases in places like New York and LA where people won't report when they've been the victim of a violent crime because they don't want to put one more black man in prison, whatever it is. Does that skew the statistics as well?
Leonard Sipes:Let me give a stat. Let me go through this lit very quickly. The vast majority of people arrested are not black. The vast majority of people who are prosecuted are not black. The vast majority of people in jail, prison, pro on probation, or not black.
Leonard Sipes:Switch gears. One in every thirty eight black males will be murdered. Now, how can you ethically? This is from, by the way, the Rand Corporation, which is well known for great statistics. So, how can you ethically live with that statistic?
Leonard Sipes:One in every thirty eight black males will end up dying via a firearm related homicide. Is that sad? That is Yeah.
Betsy Smith:Imagine if that was a cancer raid or a heart attack raid or a a you know? Who
Leonard Sipes:has the higher moral ground of fewer people in prison, fewer people arrested, or let's stop killing African American males? Who who has the higher moral ground? I think I do.
Betsy Smith:Mhmm. Mhmm. And yet when we talk about the reality of that statistic, you know, we're I get called racist all the time. When I talk about that. I talk about young Black men being killed by young Black men.
Betsy Smith:Because it is a horrible statistic and it's a horrible way to live for the people who love them. I look at Chicago and it's been this way for fifty years. Nothing seems to be changing and yet we blame the crime on everything except the people committing it.
Leonard Sipes:The the and and and I get in trouble when I say this not from liberals but for conservatives who say that I'm making excuses for criminals. The overwhelming majority of the people caught up in our criminal justice system have histories of child abuse and neglect. The rate of sexual violence committed against children while they were children. Is overwhelming. Mhmm.
Leonard Sipes:Brain damage. Brain damage. Where do they get to the brain damage? Because somebody's beating the crap out of them. Mhmm.
Leonard Sipes:So then they go out into the communities that are, you know, not exactly pro police and not exactly as as law abiding as we would like them to be. So, they're in the they go out into the larger community. They're already being pushed and shoved and I did a podcast years ago with four women caught up in the criminal justice system. All four were sexually abused as children. All four were you know, going through abuse and neglect and the one woman looks at me and goes, what do you expect from us?
Leonard Sipes:Do you really believe that people from our background are going to grow up to be good outstanding citizens? Do you really believe that? And I said, no, I don't. I said, I understand your point of view. You were abused by not only your family, not only your friends, but your community.
Leonard Sipes:But no. We don't wanna talk about that.
Betsy Smith:No. You're right. And and, you know, and when we talk about things like decarceration and all of that, we don't talk about any of that. We just want to either talk about race or politics or whatever. We've kind of lost the ability.
Betsy Smith:I think we've lost some compassion or else our compassion is put somewhere else rather than where it should be.
Leonard Sipes:Well, that's the thing, Betsy, that puzzles me about this whole discussion. If you're compassionate, then you want your fellow citizens to be protected. You want your fellow citizens to grow up in a in a place where they're not scared to death to walk down the street. You want your fellow citizens to have the confidence to move through life and your your children to move through life without being violated. That to me is compassion.
Leonard Sipes:That to me is the compassion that is lacking from folks on the other side. I mean, in there there are really bad people in this world and they deserve to be in prison and we should have enough prison beds for the really bad people while noting that the overwhelming majority or plea bargained which means the armed robbery is is is reduced to felony theft. So, you get a get a conviction so you don't have to go to trial because if everybody asks for a trial, the system would collapse. Right. The system basically considering the vast majority crime is not reported.
Leonard Sipes:The vast majority of crime, reported crime is not solved. The vast majority of there's in prosecutor's offices throughout country, 20 to 30% of these cases are dropped. So, you you've got time served in prison is ridiculously small. You know, the the system is basically geared towards leniency of the criminal. And and that's not a political statement.
Leonard Sipes:This is reality. This is two plus two equals four. I'm not saying what I'm saying from a political point of view. I'm saying it simply because it exists.
Betsy Smith:So well said. Boy, I wish we had about three more hours. But tell everybody where they can find you, how can they can subscribe to the newsletter. Okay. Everything.
Leonard Sipes:It's crimeinamerica.net. Very simple. You go on the website. If you wanna plug in your Email address, we'll send it directly to you. If you're a reporter or somebody else and if you want to get on my mailing list, that's fine.
Leonard Sipes:And that's how you find me. Crimeinamerica.net.
Betsy Smith:I cannot thank you enough for coming back on the National Police Association Podcast. Sure. And if you'd like more information about us, you can visit us at national police dot org.
NPA:Every day, the brave men and women of law enforcement put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But they need our help to continue their mission. Activist politicians, progressive prosecutors, the ACLU, and the rest of the anti police forces receive millions in donations from extremist pro criminal elements like George Soros and woke corporations. The National Police Association is fighting them in courts around the country, including the United States Supreme Court, defending officers who are being attacked for doing their jobs. Additionally, the National Police Association works year round to pass tough on crime legislation to put and keep criminals behind bars.
NPA:Consider going to nationalpolice.org and donating to keep us in the fight. Together, we can win. That is nationalpolice.org.