It directs officers to assist neighborhoods with their crime watch organizations, and encourages them to join business, education and community leaders in initiatives that steer youths away from crime. The Campbell Administration and the APD put community policing in place to lower crime in Atlanta. And it's a good thing they did. The homicide rate is down to the lowest in 13 years and the fifth lowest in 30 years. Despite the department's stellar track record, an APD employee called the department's crime reporting practices for the year 1996 into question.
Crime is down in Atlanta because of solid police work.
The audit substantiates the Administration's contention that the APD acted properly and that the reports, allowing for human error, were accurate. Despite the release of the report and the press conference, there has been confusion about the audit's results. Here are the charges the employee made and the audit's findings in those respective areas. Reports were originally classified by the APD employees as robberies when they should have been classified as larcenies. The audit, quite simply, found that no such misclassification took place.