Re:Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts
by Goronmon on Tuesday May 24, 2011 @11:13AM
(#2580128)
I think the quote is basically saying that the police claim an increase in crime rates is largely because more victims are coming forward instead of holding back, but when crime rates go down the police say it's because they are reducing crime. It seems to imply that when crime rates go down you could also question whether that's just because fewer victims are coming forward (or whether police are misrepresenting crimes to make the numbers look better).
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Re:Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts
by scottkduncan on Tuesday May 24, 2011 @11:39AM
(#2580244)
The main lesson I took from watching The Wire is not to trust any statistics that come from police departments. When performance is evaluated on crime statistics and case closure rates, there are an awful lot of tricks one can pull to make one's performance look better no matter what the underlying trends are.
The second lesson I took from The Wire is that while robbing drug dealers for a living can be lucrative, the risk/reward calculus is slightly problematic.
Re:Steady Decline in Major Crime Baffles Experts
by ultrasaurus on Tuesday May 24, 2011 @12:14PM
(#2580435)
That's why many studies only track the murder rate (it's hard to fudge). Just making people wait an extra hour before they can report a crime has a miraculous effect on the reported crime rate.