4 ms·

I do not want to sound flippant, but does that mean that crime did not happen, because it sounds like we are now deciding that 'broken window' is not an issue w

I do not want to sound flippant, but does that mean that crime did not happen, because it sounds like we are now deciding that 'broken window' is not an issue worth pursuing.

ipnon 6y ago
A rather terrifying statistic I remember from investigating crime in Chicago: 50% of homicides are brought to justice in Chicago, but the remaining half are not normally distributed in terms of crimes per criminal. ~50 people are responsible for half of the unsolved homicides in Chicago. I am not going to be able to provide a direct reference for this claim. My point is that the rate of severe crimes can be efficiently diminished by targeting professional criminals and the networks that enable them. Policing minor crimes is counterproductive because the harmful side effects of policing (racial and social injustice, legal costs, adversity between police and citizens) are greater than the benefit to the community of removing misdemeanors like vandalism and drug use. You might say that broken windows policing is not Pareto efficient.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  A thought of mine is the police use prosecution of minor crimes and harassment of identifiable groups as a proxy for harder to enforce and more serious crimes. I think it's a fallacy with very negative outcomes.
- foolmeonce 6y ago
  I think it is entirely different to handle reports of misdemeanors by the public with integrity and to attempt to catch misdemeanors in progress with active surveillance. The first can get you trust needed to identify your major criminals, the second creates an alliance of presumed criminals that shares little with the police.
- j88439h84 6y ago
  > ~50 people are responsible for half of the unsolved homicides in Chicago. What does this mean? If we know who did them, how are they unsolved?
epistasis 6y ago
I think it's definitely worth asking, but IMHO it's unlikely that crimes such as these would result in less reporting: > “Major crime complaints,” such as murder, rape, robbery and felony assault. > ... > The scientists found that civilian complaints of major crimes dropped by about 3% to 6% during the slowdown. >“The cessation of proactive policing corresponds roughly to the relative decline in crime that earlier research attributed to the effects of mass incarceration,” the authors noted. The article is careful to include the researcher's caveats; ant further study would have a better chance to address the question of a decline in major crime reporting rate. However if somebody tried to report a major assault and was turned away from reporting, I'd hope that the story would get reported on. And if people were assaulted but more fearful to go to the Police than they were before, hopefully there would also be reports. But with the police harassing individuals less, I would think people would be no less likely to go in. And of course murders are pretty much impossible to not report. But in the time period there may not have been enough to notice a statistically significant decline.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  Agreed on murder. It is hard not to report that. I am basically wondering if there is a treshold at which people simply do not report stuff to police simply, because it is largely pointless, which then results in a statistical drop.
quxbar 6y ago
Sounds to me like police are better at stopping serious crimes when they don't spend time on frivolous harassment of citizens.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  The policy need high levels of cooperation with the public to solve serious crimes. Targeted harassment of minority groups means they don't cooperate.

I do not want to sound flippant, but does that mean that crime did not happen, because it sounds like we are now deciding that 'broken window' is not an issue worth pursuing.

ipnon 6y ago

A rather terrifying statistic I remember from investigating crime in Chicago: 50% of homicides are brought to justice in Chicago, but the remaining half are not normally distributed in terms of crimes per criminal. ~50 people are responsible for half of the unsolved homicides in Chicago. I am not going to be able to provide a direct reference for this claim. My point is that the rate of severe crimes can be efficiently diminished by targeting professional criminals and the networks that enable them. Policing minor crimes is counterproductive because the harmful side effects of policing (racial and social injustice, legal costs, adversity between police and citizens) are greater than the benefit to the community of removing misdemeanors like vandalism and drug use. You might say that broken windows policing is not Pareto efficient.

Gibbon1 6y ago
A thought of mine is the police use prosecution of minor crimes and harassment of identifiable groups as a proxy for harder to enforce and more serious crimes. I think it's a fallacy with very negative outcomes.
foolmeonce 6y ago
I think it is entirely different to handle reports of misdemeanors by the public with integrity and to attempt to catch misdemeanors in progress with active surveillance. The first can get you trust needed to identify your major criminals, the second creates an alliance of presumed criminals that shares little with the police.
j88439h84 6y ago
> ~50 people are responsible for half of the unsolved homicides in Chicago. What does this mean? If we know who did them, how are they unsolved?

epistasis 6y ago

I think it's definitely worth asking, but IMHO it's unlikely that crimes such as these would result in less reporting: > “Major crime complaints,” such as murder, rape, robbery and felony assault. > ... > The scientists found that civilian complaints of major crimes dropped by about 3% to 6% during the slowdown. >“The cessation of proactive policing corresponds roughly to the relative decline in crime that earlier research attributed to the effects of mass incarceration,” the authors noted. The article is careful to include the researcher's caveats; ant further study would have a better chance to address the question of a decline in major crime reporting rate. However if somebody tried to report a major assault and was turned away from reporting, I'd hope that the story would get reported on. And if people were assaulted but more fearful to go to the Police than they were before, hopefully there would also be reports. But with the police harassing individuals less, I would think people would be no less likely to go in. And of course murders are pretty much impossible to not report. But in the time period there may not have been enough to notice a statistically significant decline.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
Agreed on murder. It is hard not to report that. I am basically wondering if there is a treshold at which people simply do not report stuff to police simply, because it is largely pointless, which then results in a statistical drop.

quxbar 6y ago

Sounds to me like police are better at stopping serious crimes when they don't spend time on frivolous harassment of citizens.

Gibbon1 6y ago
The policy need high levels of cooperation with the public to solve serious crimes. Targeted harassment of minority groups means they don't cooperate.