They talk about it in the article. Do you talk about as a percentage of the population, do you account for population growth, do you talk about certain categories of crime, do you place more weight on certain times of crime, etc etc.

It’s all well and good to say, for example crime went up at train stations were PSOs were deployed, but that’s crime that’s detected, before PSOs there wasn’t any one at the station to find it.

It’s all well and good to say crime in Clyde North has sky rocketed in the last three years, but Clyde North was just paddocks 3 years ago.

It’s all well and good to say that crime overall is down, but not if you discover that rapes, assaults, burgs and crim damage is up, but drug driving, offensive language and taxi drivers not wearing uniforms while driving is down.

Edit: I made things up as an example, to look at context and how crime is reported, rather than just statistics on there own.