No, they weren't averages. They were absolutes. They are a statement of the level of events, extremes, as you say. My point is that "home invasions" are not going up, up. I just like a little truth in these statements.
As you probably know, it is difficult to state simple facts using statistics and have them mean very much. It's sort of like saying it rained yesterday (which is not a statistic at all). In addition to what I mentioned already in the previous post, in a couple of the cities, even though the numbers in 2009 were lower than they were in 2005, they were higher in all the years in between. But you could still say they went down.
Another thing about statistics is that if you don't like the results, you can simply ignore them and go ahead and say whatever you like, which people will do. If you don't care for the facts, make up your own and keep saying it over and over again until your own statement is accepted as The Fact.
Even in the case of FBI statistics, which amount to nearly 300 pages for each year, they are still based on input from participating agencies only and other federal agencies use supposedly different methods and get different results, though it would be hard to imagine how results would be a lot different.
I'm still curious how it is that El Paso, Texas, had only 12 murders in 2009. Roanoke, Virginia, had 9 and in 2005 even had more than El Paso. Maybe a lot of places have undeserved reputations for either safety or danger.
Again, they weren't averages. They were the reported numerical incidents for the two years I compared. And I did not mention rates, either.