Injury research explains conflicting violence trends.

T his commentary explains conflicting trends in violence over the past decade as derived from the two official sources of information: household crime surveys designed to identify citizens’ experience of crime and police data. Police records, rather than representing a reliable measure of trends in violence, are a product of police activity—increasingly prompted by better surveillance and targeting, increased numbers of police, and changes in recording practices. Injury data from emergency departments are an objective measure of harm and should be used to target local violence prevention resources.