The Dallas Morning News ran a probing article that examines how the Dallas Police Department classifies what most people would think of as burglaries. The newspaper found that the police department often called it vandalism if someone broke into a home but didn’t take anything.

The FBI, in the UCR Handbook (warning: big PDF here) that’s used by law enforcement agencies to classify crimes, calls burglaries “The unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft.”

The UCR handbook further distinguishes between burglary and vandalism: “A forcible entry or unlawful entry in which no theft or felony occurs but acts of vandalism, malicious mischief, etc. are committed is not classified as a burglary provided investigation clearly established that the unlawful entry was for a purpose other than to commit a felony or theft.” So if police are to assume the act is a burglary, unless they have clear evidence that says otherwise.

The practice is nothing new, of course. IRE members have reported in police downgrading crime in Broward County, Fla., Chicago and Philadelphia.

Using campaign contribution data? You will want to check out the Federal Election Commission’s new data catalog. The catalog, definitely still in the building stages, has links to the commission’s lobbyist bundled contribution, leadership PAC and lobbyist PAC files in a variety of formats, along with documentation.

The commission also launched a disclosure blog, where the FEC’s in-house data guru Bob Biersack discusses the ins and outs of the commission's databases.