Passage Summary: You can't always trust crime numbers because the people who provide them—like the police or the news—often manipulate the data to make themselves look better or to get what they want.

Conclusion: Crime statistics often reflect the personal goals and techniques of the people who report them rather than the actual amount of crime.

Reasoning: Police, politicians, and the media all have specific incentives to either inflate or deflate crime data to benefit their own interests.

Analysis: The argument is structured by first stating a general thesis about the unreliability of statistics. It then supports this by providing a series of specific examples involving different social actors—police, politicians, and newspapers—to show how their motives lead to data manipulation. To identify the method, look for a description that mentions a general claim followed by illustrative instances.