  We consider the problem of estimating the incidence of residential burglaries
that occur over a well-defined period of time within the 10 most populous
cities in North Carolina. Our analysis typifies some of the general issues that
arise in estimating and comparing local crime rates over time and for different
cities. Typically, the only information we have about crime incidence within
any particular city is what that city's police department tells us, and the
police can only count and describe the crimes that come to their attention. To
address this, our study combines information from police-based residential
burglary counts and the National Crime Victimization Survey to obtain interval
estimates of residential burglary incidence at the local level. We use those
estimates as a basis for commenting on the fragility of between-city and
over-time comparisons that often appear in both public discourse about crime
patterns.
