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Crime has dominated the headlines in Cincinnati this summer, from high-profile incidents like a viral video of a fight Downtown, to frequent updates about the city鈥檚 reported crime numbers.

With the mayor and all nine city council members up for re-election in three months, the rhetoric about crime is ramping up, too.

It's safe to say a lot of people are skeptical about the city鈥檚 messaging on crime, including some who claim city officials are intentionally deceiving the public.

Republican Cory Bowman is challenging Democratic incumbent Aftab Pureval for Mayor in November. Bowman on July 24.

鈥淚 saw a post yesterday to where the wording was, 鈥榳ell if you look at overall crime based on鈥� 鈥� this is what they said 鈥� 鈥榦ver the average of three years. Over the average.鈥� " Bowman said. "So they鈥檙e going to have their statistics say whatever they want."

All five Charter Committee-endorsed candidates for City Council have expressed skepticism about crime data.

鈥淲e鈥檝e been told that crime is going down. Yet, the average Cincinnatian is pulling up their phone every morning seeing push notifications of shootings and other things happening in the city, and the math doesn鈥檛 math,鈥� Aaron Weiner, council candidate, .

Confusion is understandable

Cory Haberman, PhD, director of the Institute of Crime Science at the University of Cincinnati, says a high-profile incident that gets a lot of media attention can shift public perception of safety 鈥� what he calls 鈥渟ignal crimes.鈥�

"Maybe it's very heinous, maybe it's in a public location, maybe somebody's famous or something like that, right?" Haberman told WVXU. "It becomes a news story that can sometimes signal to people that there is an issue. Then you go and look at those aggregate crime trends, and, actually, maybe we don't necessarily have more crime."

Haberman says that doesn鈥檛 mean these 鈥渟ignal crimes鈥� are unimportant or should be downplayed, just that they're not necessarily evidence of a growing crime problem.

The next step is to look at the data itself, which has potential pitfalls as well.

Crime Data Analysis 101

"When someone hears crime is up, my mind goes to, well, which [kind] of the crime?"

Jillian Desmond, PhD, is a senior crime analyst for the Cincinnati Police Department. She says even a statement like 鈥�violent crime is up or down鈥� isn鈥檛 specific enough. That's because the term "violent crime" includes rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and homicide. While the combined number might be up or down, the opposite could be true for any of the individual crime types.

Desmond manages a team of six analysts whose entire job is looking at the numbers, but she said it doesn't stop there. A few key factors, like location, help police drill down on a problem. In fact, the vast majority of violent crime happens in about 5% of the city.

Another important factor is the time period.

"We use a 28-day period as, I would call it our tactical level, and that's where we can see these micro trends," Desmond said. "We compare it to last year as kind of that middle ground, and then our three-year is what we would consider as the historic. That's the context that we're sitting in."

The time period for comparison can make two technically true statements seem contradictory. For example, homicides may be up compared to "this time last year" 鈥� that's comparing the past 28 days to the same 28 days the year before 鈥� and also be down compared to "this time last year" 鈥� comparing the year-to-date number for this year with the year-to-date number for the year before.

Desmond says percentage changes can be misleading, too.

"A change from two to one is different than a change from 50 to 100," she said. "But the flip can also be true 鈥� a percent decrease that's really small could actually be very substantial to one specific population or one group [or] area."

It's about nuance

Cincinnati Police Assistant Chief Matthew Hammer says overly broad statements aren't useful.

"You will never hear news reporting that says sickness is up," Hammer said. "Of course, the public's questions are going to be, well, what kind of sickness and who specializes in that, and what are we doing about it? And until we get to a more specific conversation about a particular virus or illness or disease, we really can't answer those following questions."

All those distinctions are tough to fit into a single news headline or short news article; it's tricky to communicate nuanced information in a concise manner.

How to interpret crime data yourself

The next time you see a news story about crime being up or down, you can ask yourself:

• What part of the city is included?
• How is crime is defined?
• What time period is being referenced?

Those answers can help you to better understand what's really going on.

Jillian Desmond's team of crime analysts run a series of reports every week. One is a citywide STARS report, generated each Monday and published publicly by the following Friday.

The first page includes data on violent crime, property crime, and criminal shootings for the whole city. There's also information about staffing numbers and response times. The following pages have the same data for each of the city's police districts.

You can find these weekly reports ; click "STARS Reports" then "2025 STARS Reports" then scroll to the most recent report at the bottom of the list.

Here's the most recent citywide STARS report (article continues after):

There's also a , generated each Monday and published publicly within a day or two. These reports contain much of the same information as the citywide report, but not in the same format. The neighborhood reports include numbers for the last 28 days compared to the immediately previous 28 days. There's also a map showing where each offense occurred, and a "block report" listing each offense.

You can find these weekly reports ; simply click the neighborhood you want, and the PDF file will open.

Here's an example (article continues after):

You can also see raw data on many public safety topics on .

'Singular top priority'

At the end of the day, public perception of safety often has little to do with actual crime data. , Americans tend to believe there is more crime in the U.S. than there was a year ago, even when the opposite is true.

Mayor Aftab Pureval spoke at a news conference last week, addressing the national attention brought on by the viral Downtown fight.

"While the data shows the progress that we've made, it means nothing if the public perception does not match," Pureval said. "And currently, too many Cincinnatians don't feel safe."

Pureval says preventing violent crime is the singular top priority of city officials: "Our budget, our words and our actions all reflect that."

Read more:

• Cincinnati Council to vote on proposed citywide, Downtown curfews
• Ramaswamy weighs in on public safety at Cincinnati town hall
• Prosecutors want Ohio's burglary law changed after court ruling but public defender has concerns
• City officials announce new public safety measures and denounce politicization of viral fight