Dwight E. Hines, Ph.D.

IndyMedia
715 Green Woods Road
Peru, Maine 04290

October 11, 2010

Edward M. Quinn, Lieutenant

Oxford County Sheriff’s Office
P.O. Box 179
South Paris, Maine 04281

Dear Lieutenant Quinn:

I received your response to my request over a week after my request, about September 18th, and I
understand how busy you are. I apologize for my delay in responding to you but I, too, have been
busy. I’m glad you are sensitive to the dates because one of the measures that we are making now is
response time to requests, as well as completeness and accuracy. Someday, maybe soon, the data will
be on the extensive national lists, such as Reporters’ Committee for a Free Press <www.rcfp.org>.

Thank you for the information that you sent and I again will be accessing the databases at the state
and federal levels.

My major concern at this time is that the data on crimes are not as accurate as they need to be to
properly evaluate the outcomes of different policing and educational programs. Like you, this
concerns me because it means that successful programs will not be identified and continued and
unsuccessful programs might be continued. During times of tight monies there is little doubt that
those programs and projects that are properly evaluated will have a much higher likelihood of
continued funding than those that are not properly evaluated. <http://www.alnap.org/>

At this time, my data indicate that the error range is not likely greater than ten percent for each of
the categories, except for gangs, witness/party tampering and white collar crimes (mostly insurance
fraud). Yet, even less than ten percent error can wipe out or mask the effects of a law enforcement
or educational intervention. In addition, inaccurate data can cause a tremendous decrease in public
trust, agency morale, and agency effectiveness.

My request to you with this letter is for an opportunity to examine and review what federal and state
grants you are currently receiving and what federal and state grants you have submitted or have in
preparation to submit in the near future. Because Obama’s Executive Order to Federal Agencies not
only has tightened their requirements for specifying their data quality requirements under the Data
Quality Act < http://www.thecre.com/quality/2010/20100624a_quality.html> and has added peer
review as a part of the process, the DQA is probably the best way to improve the error rates in crime
reporting, see also
< http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/evaluation/about.htm>

I know you have struggled with the issues, as I have, as what are tolerable error rates in dealing with
crime reporting, but my feeling at this time is that zero-tolerance is not humanly possible in dealing
with a system as complex as our criminal justice system. It will just frustrate everyone involved if
we try to attain the levels of precision that are possible in engineering or physics. Yet, it is also
obvious that the record keeping changes that have occurred in law enforcement in the last 25 years

1
have greatly improved law enforcement in all areas. So, I look forward to determining what small
changes can be made to improve the accuracy of the system and its different components.

No matter what, Maine has come a long way from the time when they used to have one of the largest
Ku Klux Klans in the United States, and I don’t think people here want to return to those days,
though there are undoubtedly some residuals.

Dwight Hines

Copy:
database.sunshine
Sheriff Gallant