Vehicle-related arrests are just one type of crime that affects Inglewood residents. 

To put the 31 vehicle-related arrests in context, they make up about 28% of all 111 arrests in the city, including 89 of residents and 22 for non-residents, in the month of August, according to an analysis of data from the Inglewood Police Department. 

Crime and other data provided on city websites can be confusing and not very accessible to the public, experts said. 

“It is not uncommon for a table to be backwards, and people naturally read from left to right,” Professor D.G Browne, a researcher in UCLA’s engineering department said. Some “statistics can tell a better story” than misconceptions based on media. 

For instance, while residents may pay more attention to reported crimes that make the headlines, data obtained from the Inglewood Police Department shows that reported violent crimes have dropped from 2021 to 2022.

 From 2020 to 2021, missing persons in the city decreased by nearly half, with only a slight uptick the year after. 

City leaders said Inglewood’s reputation for crime is not really deserved. For instance, in 2019, Inglewood had a violent crime rate of 613.4 per 100,000 people, while it was 732.2 for Los Angeles.