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Detroit absolutely doesn't have more homicides than Chicago, and I have no idea how you could have come to believe that. Detroit hasn't had more than 400 homici

Detroit absolutely doesn't have more homicides than Chicago, and I have no idea how you could have come to believe that. Detroit hasn't had more than 400 homicides in a year since 2007. Chicago hasn't had under 500 homicides per year since 2014 (over 800 in 2016), and we (I'm a homicide researcher in Chicago who grew up in Detroit, btw) haven't had fewer than 400 homicides per year since the 1960's. If you meant per-capita, Detroit does have more homicides per capita than Chicago, LA, or NYC, but combining per-capita numbers doesn't really make sense/is misleading.

rossvor 6y ago
I have no opinion on Detroit or crime rates in general. Just want to disagree that combining per-capita numbers is in some way misleading. Makes perfect sense for me and that is how I read the parent's comment -- combined and per-capita. Meant to illustrate the degree of the problem compared to other cities.
- fhars 6y ago
  Adding per capita numbers makes absolutely no sense at all. None whatsoever.
  - rossvor 6y ago
    It works the same way as any other time a sentence like "A has a greater value in X than B, C and D combined" appears -- to illustrate that A is significantly larger compared to its siblings in the set and its usually meant to be a surprising fact. X can be a total, per capita or some other rate or whatever, it will depend on the context, as long as it's the same, it doesn't the affect the intent of the sentence. To expand it further. I assume you don't consider below being misleading somehow: Mary gets paid 90k per annum -- which is more than what both Jane and Jill receive per annum combined. It's the same principle.
    - jstanley 6y ago
      If it's per capita, can't you just list every city that has a lower per-capita rate and claim that it is higher than all of them "combined"? > Mary gets paid 90k per annum -- which is more than what both Jane and Jill receive per annum combined. It's the same principle. This is misleading if all you're saying is that both Jane and Jill get paid less than 90k.
      - hobofan 6y ago
        > This is misleading if all you're saying is that both Jane and Jill get paid less than 90k. But nobody is saying that. That is a totally normal statement to make. E.g. 90k > (20k + 30k) It works just as well for the murder rate per 100k residents: 39.80 > (23.14 + 7.01 + 3.39) Detroit > (Chicago + LA + NYC)
        jstanley 6y ago
        Are you saying that if Chicago,LA,NYC have death rates of 23.14,7.01,3.39 per 100k, then the combined death rate of Chicago, LA, and NYC is 23.14 + 7.01 + 3.39 = 33.54 per 100k? If that's what you're saying, then you're wrong, because the combined death rate of 3 cities would be the number of deaths across 3 cities divided by the number of people across 3 cities. It would not be the number of deaths per 100k in each city added together! If that's not what you're saying, then I don't understand how it can be meaningful to compare those figures.
        hobofan 6y ago
        "Combined" is AFAIK not well defined. You are taking it as the (weighted) average, while I'm taking it as the sum. As which of the two you take it is obviously very context dependent. If someone would ask you what the combined output of two factories per hour is, would you tell them the average? I think it's a very meaningful comparison, as it highlights that there is a severely increased risk of dying of murder in Detroit. To put the same in a different framing: You could live one year in Chicago, one year in LA, one year in NYC and run a lower risk of being murdered than if you were living in Detroit for just one year. Of course this is just one small piece in the overall puzzle of mortality statistics, and might not have a big impact even at elevated levels, but that's a different topic. Such "combined number of second, third, ... places" (= sum) figures are good at quickly highlighting that there must be something out of the ordinary happening, because a smallish deviation of a few percent can not be expressed as a sum of e.g. second and third place. There are of course some other problems with this method of comparing figures (e.g. bias - as a foreigner, I would have assumed a much higher murder rate for NYC), but there is nothing inherently wrong with comparing numbers this way.
- modriano 6y ago
  For 2018, did Detroit have more homicides per capita than Los Angeles and St. Louis combined? - St. Louis: 186 homicides, 302K residents, ~62 homs/100K pop - Los Angeles: 259 homicides, 3.99M residents, ~6.5 homs/100K pop - Detroit: 261 homicides, 672K residents, ~38.8 homs/100K pop - STL + LA: 445 homicides, 4.292M residents, ~10.4 homs/100K pop. Does Detroit have more homicides per capita than Los Angeles and St. Louis combined? Yeah, technically. Are you more likely to be murdered in Los Angeles and St. Louis combined? That's meaningless, as Los Angeles and St. Louis is not a relevant unit to that question.
rumanator 6y ago
> Detroit absolutely doesn't have more homicides than Chicago A quick search resulted in these statistics from 215: https://www.statista.com/statistics/718903/murder-rate-in-us-cities-in-2015/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/718903/murder-rate-in-us... * Detroit is 3rd on the list with 38.88 murders per 100.000 residents * Chicago is 9th on the list with 20.7 per 100.000 residents. Therefore at least according to this data Detroit's homicide rate is roughly twice that of Chicago.
- dtwest 6y ago
  The original comment said "Detroit has more murders than New York, Los Angeles and Chicago combined". They also said "Detroit, the city with the most violent crime per capita in the US" These statements are false. Chicago has more murders than Detroit. St. Louis has a higher murder rate than Detroit. The person you are commenting on is correct.

rossvor 6y ago

I have no opinion on Detroit or crime rates in general. Just want to disagree that combining per-capita numbers is in some way misleading. Makes perfect sense for me and that is how I read the parent's comment -- combined and per-capita. Meant to illustrate the degree of the problem compared to other cities.

fhars 6y ago
Adding per capita numbers makes absolutely no sense at all. None whatsoever.
- rossvor 6y ago
  It works the same way as any other time a sentence like "A has a greater value in X than B, C and D combined" appears -- to illustrate that A is significantly larger compared to its siblings in the set and its usually meant to be a surprising fact. X can be a total, per capita or some other rate or whatever, it will depend on the context, as long as it's the same, it doesn't the affect the intent of the sentence. To expand it further. I assume you don't consider below being misleading somehow: Mary gets paid 90k per annum -- which is more than what both Jane and Jill receive per annum combined. It's the same principle.
  - jstanley 6y ago
    If it's per capita, can't you just list every city that has a lower per-capita rate and claim that it is higher than all of them "combined"? > Mary gets paid 90k per annum -- which is more than what both Jane and Jill receive per annum combined. It's the same principle. This is misleading if all you're saying is that both Jane and Jill get paid less than 90k.
    - hobofan 6y ago
      > This is misleading if all you're saying is that both Jane and Jill get paid less than 90k. But nobody is saying that. That is a totally normal statement to make. E.g. 90k > (20k + 30k) It works just as well for the murder rate per 100k residents: 39.80 > (23.14 + 7.01 + 3.39) Detroit > (Chicago + LA + NYC)
      - jstanley 6y ago
        Are you saying that if Chicago,LA,NYC have death rates of 23.14,7.01,3.39 per 100k, then the combined death rate of Chicago, LA, and NYC is 23.14 + 7.01 + 3.39 = 33.54 per 100k? If that's what you're saying, then you're wrong, because the combined death rate of 3 cities would be the number of deaths across 3 cities divided by the number of people across 3 cities. It would not be the number of deaths per 100k in each city added together! If that's not what you're saying, then I don't understand how it can be meaningful to compare those figures.
        hobofan 6y ago
        "Combined" is AFAIK not well defined. You are taking it as the (weighted) average, while I'm taking it as the sum. As which of the two you take it is obviously very context dependent. If someone would ask you what the combined output of two factories per hour is, would you tell them the average? I think it's a very meaningful comparison, as it highlights that there is a severely increased risk of dying of murder in Detroit. To put the same in a different framing: You could live one year in Chicago, one year in LA, one year in NYC and run a lower risk of being murdered than if you were living in Detroit for just one year. Of course this is just one small piece in the overall puzzle of mortality statistics, and might not have a big impact even at elevated levels, but that's a different topic. Such "combined number of second, third, ... places" (= sum) figures are good at quickly highlighting that there must be something out of the ordinary happening, because a smallish deviation of a few percent can not be expressed as a sum of e.g. second and third place. There are of course some other problems with this method of comparing figures (e.g. bias - as a foreigner, I would have assumed a much higher murder rate for NYC), but there is nothing inherently wrong with comparing numbers this way.
modriano 6y ago
For 2018, did Detroit have more homicides per capita than Los Angeles and St. Louis combined? - St. Louis: 186 homicides, 302K residents, ~62 homs/100K pop - Los Angeles: 259 homicides, 3.99M residents, ~6.5 homs/100K pop - Detroit: 261 homicides, 672K residents, ~38.8 homs/100K pop - STL + LA: 445 homicides, 4.292M residents, ~10.4 homs/100K pop. Does Detroit have more homicides per capita than Los Angeles and St. Louis combined? Yeah, technically. Are you more likely to be murdered in Los Angeles and St. Louis combined? That's meaningless, as Los Angeles and St. Louis is not a relevant unit to that question.

rumanator 6y ago

> Detroit absolutely doesn't have more homicides than Chicago A quick search resulted in these statistics from 215: https://www.statista.com/statistics/718903/murder-rate-in-us-cities-in-2015/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/718903/murder-rate-in-us... * Detroit is 3rd on the list with 38.88 murders per 100.000 residents * Chicago is 9th on the list with 20.7 per 100.000 residents. Therefore at least according to this data Detroit's homicide rate is roughly twice that of Chicago.

dtwest 6y ago
The original comment said "Detroit has more murders than New York, Los Angeles and Chicago combined". They also said "Detroit, the city with the most violent crime per capita in the US" These statements are false. Chicago has more murders than Detroit. St. Louis has a higher murder rate than Detroit. The person you are commenting on is correct.