3 ms·

I admittedly have not looked at the data in detail and maybe it's the cynic in me, but how much of that decrease in crime can be attributed to manipulating the

I admittedly have not looked at the data in detail and maybe it's the cynic in me, but how much of that decrease in crime can be attributed to manipulating the data? For instance, in San Francisco, car breakins have been reclassified as a misdemeanor. And obviously this is anecdotal, but residents are so blasé towards the complete fucking shitshow that is SFPD (I actually rewrote that into something much gentler) that they don't even bother calling the police or reporting crimes. If it's gotten so bad that people don't even report crimes, and police make it difficult to report crimes (there are many stories about this - yes it's anecdotal), how can we expect the statistics to mean anything? The only thing I know for certain is I've been assaulted by homeless people more than once, including one who pushed me into traffic. After the first few times calling the police and having nobody show up for 30+ minutes I just stopped bothering. I've also seen someone rob a store while a cop was stationed at the entrance of the store for the sole purpose of stopping theft - the cop literally shrugged and said "what am I gonna do, chase after him?" Obviously I'm biased based on my experiences and I'm referring to the microcosm that is SF, but I absolutely unequivocally do not trust anything that comes from the SFPD. And I see no reason to trust other police departments either. For something a little less anecdotal, here's an interesting podcast that basically says once cops started tracking crime they just stopped reporting it. Goodhart's Law in action. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/127-the-crime-machine-part-i https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/127-the-crime-machine-...

matt4077 8y ago
Just look at homicides. A dead body is somewhat impossible to hide from the statistics. Then, overlay that data with any other category of crime. Here's a google image search: https://www.google.com/search?q=murder+assault+rates&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiP8qbcppThAhUPyFkKHZT-B2sQ_AUIDygC&biw=1287&bih=826#imgrc=rSbHge7DGraf0M https://www.google.com/search?q=murder+assault+rates&rls=en&...: What you will see is broad agreements of the trends, often including fluctuation in shorter terms. Your theory would thus require (a) some evidence that the police is now somehow hiding murders, or (b) that murders fell but other crimes (even attempted murder) were somehow exempt from the trend and the police in almost any jurisdiction managed to underreport all other crimes with almost perfect accuracy to reproduce the trend in murders. The comparisons across jurisdictions is interesting by itself: falling levels of violent crimes have been observed across a broad swath across North America, Europe, and beyond. It's somewhat unlikely that all these unrelated police forces somehow simultaneously decided to and succeeded in embarking on a corrupt campaign to falsify statistics. If anything, the prevailing winds should have led to more crime being reported. Something like rape or assault tend to be taken more seriously these days. In cases such as Spain, one would also expect today's statistics to be more accurate than they were in the 70s, when it still was a fascist dictatorship interested in projecting an image of stability and safety.
- Judgmentality 8y ago
  > Just look at homicides. A dead body is somewhat impossible to hide from the statistics. Actually it's been posited before that Japan reclassifies murders as suicides in order to skew the data, and some believe other countries are doing this as well. There is a correlation between countries with low murder rates and high suicide rates. http://freakonomics.com/2009/10/29/fewer-murders-more-suicide/ http://freakonomics.com/2009/10/29/fewer-murders-more-suicid...
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    Is that what you believe is happening in the parent post?
    - Judgmentality 8y ago
      I think it's one of many confounding factors that detracts from the ultimate conclusion "violent crime is down." As others have pointed out better trauma response could also be a factor in this trend. In fact, the suicide rate in the US is the highest it's been in decades. https://psmag.com/news/the-suicide-rate-is-at-its-highest-in-a-half-century https://psmag.com/news/the-suicide-rate-is-at-its-highest-in... I know at least one instance where there was a lot of controversy over the police ruling it a suicide and stopped the investigation there. Not everybody in the victim's family agreed but they decided not to challenge the police.
- 01100011 8y ago
  Better trauma response would explain a lower murder rate. I have no idea if that's what is going on, but figured I'd mention it.
- Haga 8y ago
  Or maybe emergency services got that much better
brian_cunnie 8y ago
My experience with the SFPD was very different — I'm sorry you had such disappointing experiences. The first time I called 911 was when a man coming down from drugs tried to kick in my fire escape window. Four police were in my apartment within five minutes; they arrested and handcuffed the man. I couldn't have been more thankful. My second interaction with the police occurred when I was punched in the face a couple of times while riding a Muni bus (San Francisco Mass Transit). The driver pulled the bus over while me & two other passengers held the guy until the police showed up (within minutes). Again, the police detained the gentleman who had punched me in the face. Whenever I've needed the police, they've been there.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- DrScump 8y ago
  the police detained the gentleman If they didn't come to you for a follow-up interview or had your testimony requested, my guess is that the assailant was released without charges.
  - rhizome 8y ago
    Or the gentleman was on probation/parole, so GP's testimony wasn't necessarily required.
rhizome 8y ago
the complete fucking shitshow that is SFPD I know what you're driving at here and I would probably tend to agree, but man you should travel to some other parts of the country some time.
- kenneth 8y ago
  I've traveled all around the world (~60 countries) including plenty of third world countries and honestly, I feel safer in pretty much all of them than in San Francisco. Even in other American cities known for crime, I feel safer than in SF, because at least those cities' crime is more contained to "bad neighborhoods" whereas in SF it's everywhere and extremely concentrated downtown. Granted I haven't spent a ton of time in US flyover country… I hear St. Louis, Tulsa, Baltimore, etc. aren't too nice…
bjourne 8y ago
People always have a very hard time believing crime is decreasing where they live. For example, I'm sure I could convince you that crime is decreasing in Russia, Poland, Scandinavia, Germany, Canada or even New York but I'll never ever get you to believe it is decreasing in San Francisco! :) Similarly, a Londoner would never believe their city's crime rate is decreasing but easily accepts that San Francisco's is. There are a lot of criminologists in the United States and they will all agree on that violent crime is much less than what it used to be, with some parts of the country (Colorado, for example...) bucking the trend. The idea that they would all have been fooled by manipulated data is absurd. For example, yes it is possible that some police departments has a tendency to under-report crime. Criminologists aren't dumb and they know about such tendencies. So to counter that they measure crime rates using other statistics too. One example is victim surveys in which they ask X number of people if they have been the victim of a crime. If the number of respondents answering yes decreases then it is plausible that the crime rate has decreased. Another is hospital surveys in which they ask hospitals how many patients they have treated for being punched in the face. If the hospitals report that fewer patients have been treated for getting punched in the face than before, then it is plausible that the number of people getting punched in the face has decreased. Putting enough of these statistics together lets you conclude that, yes, violent crime definitely has decreased. For a better explanation you have to ask a real criminologist, which I'm not.
- Judgmentality 8y ago
  You're absolutely right, if I truly want to understand this better I'd have to take the effort to learn more. And all of your points are valid.

matt4077 8y ago

Just look at homicides. A dead body is somewhat impossible to hide from the statistics. Then, overlay that data with any other category of crime. Here's a google image search: https://www.google.com/search?q=murder+assault+rates&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiP8qbcppThAhUPyFkKHZT-B2sQ_AUIDygC&biw=1287&bih=826#imgrc=rSbHge7DGraf0M https://www.google.com/search?q=murder+assault+rates&rls=en&...: What you will see is broad agreements of the trends, often including fluctuation in shorter terms. Your theory would thus require (a) some evidence that the police is now somehow hiding murders, or (b) that murders fell but other crimes (even attempted murder) were somehow exempt from the trend and the police in almost any jurisdiction managed to underreport all other crimes with almost perfect accuracy to reproduce the trend in murders. The comparisons across jurisdictions is interesting by itself: falling levels of violent crimes have been observed across a broad swath across North America, Europe, and beyond. It's somewhat unlikely that all these unrelated police forces somehow simultaneously decided to and succeeded in embarking on a corrupt campaign to falsify statistics. If anything, the prevailing winds should have led to more crime being reported. Something like rape or assault tend to be taken more seriously these days. In cases such as Spain, one would also expect today's statistics to be more accurate than they were in the 70s, when it still was a fascist dictatorship interested in projecting an image of stability and safety.

Judgmentality 8y ago
> Just look at homicides. A dead body is somewhat impossible to hide from the statistics. Actually it's been posited before that Japan reclassifies murders as suicides in order to skew the data, and some believe other countries are doing this as well. There is a correlation between countries with low murder rates and high suicide rates. http://freakonomics.com/2009/10/29/fewer-murders-more-suicide/ http://freakonomics.com/2009/10/29/fewer-murders-more-suicid...
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Is that what you believe is happening in the parent post?
  - Judgmentality 8y ago
    I think it's one of many confounding factors that detracts from the ultimate conclusion "violent crime is down." As others have pointed out better trauma response could also be a factor in this trend. In fact, the suicide rate in the US is the highest it's been in decades. https://psmag.com/news/the-suicide-rate-is-at-its-highest-in-a-half-century https://psmag.com/news/the-suicide-rate-is-at-its-highest-in... I know at least one instance where there was a lot of controversy over the police ruling it a suicide and stopped the investigation there. Not everybody in the victim's family agreed but they decided not to challenge the police.
01100011 8y ago
Better trauma response would explain a lower murder rate. I have no idea if that's what is going on, but figured I'd mention it.
Haga 8y ago
Or maybe emergency services got that much better

brian_cunnie 8y ago

My experience with the SFPD was very different — I'm sorry you had such disappointing experiences. The first time I called 911 was when a man coming down from drugs tried to kick in my fire escape window. Four police were in my apartment within five minutes; they arrested and handcuffed the man. I couldn't have been more thankful. My second interaction with the police occurred when I was punched in the face a couple of times while riding a Muni bus (San Francisco Mass Transit). The driver pulled the bus over while me & two other passengers held the guy until the police showed up (within minutes). Again, the police detained the gentleman who had punched me in the face. Whenever I've needed the police, they've been there.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
DrScump 8y ago
the police detained the gentleman If they didn't come to you for a follow-up interview or had your testimony requested, my guess is that the assailant was released without charges.
- rhizome 8y ago
  Or the gentleman was on probation/parole, so GP's testimony wasn't necessarily required.

rhizome 8y ago

the complete fucking shitshow that is SFPD I know what you're driving at here and I would probably tend to agree, but man you should travel to some other parts of the country some time.

kenneth 8y ago
I've traveled all around the world (~60 countries) including plenty of third world countries and honestly, I feel safer in pretty much all of them than in San Francisco. Even in other American cities known for crime, I feel safer than in SF, because at least those cities' crime is more contained to "bad neighborhoods" whereas in SF it's everywhere and extremely concentrated downtown. Granted I haven't spent a ton of time in US flyover country… I hear St. Louis, Tulsa, Baltimore, etc. aren't too nice…

bjourne 8y ago

People always have a very hard time believing crime is decreasing where they live. For example, I'm sure I could convince you that crime is decreasing in Russia, Poland, Scandinavia, Germany, Canada or even New York but I'll never ever get you to believe it is decreasing in San Francisco! :) Similarly, a Londoner would never believe their city's crime rate is decreasing but easily accepts that San Francisco's is. There are a lot of criminologists in the United States and they will all agree on that violent crime is much less than what it used to be, with some parts of the country (Colorado, for example...) bucking the trend. The idea that they would all have been fooled by manipulated data is absurd. For example, yes it is possible that some police departments has a tendency to under-report crime. Criminologists aren't dumb and they know about such tendencies. So to counter that they measure crime rates using other statistics too. One example is victim surveys in which they ask X number of people if they have been the victim of a crime. If the number of respondents answering yes decreases then it is plausible that the crime rate has decreased. Another is hospital surveys in which they ask hospitals how many patients they have treated for being punched in the face. If the hospitals report that fewer patients have been treated for getting punched in the face than before, then it is plausible that the number of people getting punched in the face has decreased. Putting enough of these statistics together lets you conclude that, yes, violent crime definitely has decreased. For a better explanation you have to ask a real criminologist, which I'm not.

Judgmentality 8y ago
You're absolutely right, if I truly want to understand this better I'd have to take the effort to learn more. And all of your points are valid.