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Crime rates nationally dropped also during the same time - and not all areas had the same analytics. It's really not clear if the reductions were from the NYC s

by dv_dt 6y ago

Crime rates nationally dropped also during the same time - and not all areas had the same analytics. It's really not clear if the reductions were from the NYC stats or in particular "agressive" law enforcement.

latortuga 6y ago
This is so utterly compelling a rebuttal that I can hardly believe the original argument was made in the first place. You can't argue that tool X led to outcome Y if everyone had the same outcome without tool X, and in fact the evidence then leads to the opposite causality: tool X is useless toward outcome Y.
bronson 6y ago
True, CompStat is not at all "widely credited" with contributing to the nationwide drop in crime. Even its contribution to NYC's drop is debatable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompStat#Critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompStat#Critique
Barrin92 6y ago
not only nationally, but worldwide! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop In Germany we have no "predictive policing" to my knowledge, and even cameras and so on are used conservatively given how privacy sensitive we ware. Yet we've seen the exact same development over recent decades.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  NY police were working in Germany......... or low cost computation made entertainment extremely affordable and time consuming
misja111 6y ago
From the article that OP linked to: "Since Compstat was introduced, crime rates in New York City have dropped dramatically. From 1993 to 1995, the total crime rate declined 27.44 percent across the city." National crime rates dropped as well in that period but nowhere near 27%.
- dv_dt 6y ago
  Seems like national stats maybe lagged NYC a little, but from a slightly different range of 1994-2000 on this chart the drop was (eyballing) 35% for homicides. https://www.politico.com/interactives/2020/police-budget-spending-george-floyd-defund/ https://www.politico.com/interactives/2020/police-budget-spe...

by dv_dt 6y ago

latortuga 6y ago

This is so utterly compelling a rebuttal that I can hardly believe the original argument was made in the first place. You can't argue that tool X led to outcome Y if everyone had the same outcome without tool X, and in fact the evidence then leads to the opposite causality: tool X is useless toward outcome Y.

bronson 6y ago

True, CompStat is not at all "widely credited" with contributing to the nationwide drop in crime. Even its contribution to NYC's drop is debatable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompStat#Critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompStat#Critique

Barrin92 6y ago

not only nationally, but worldwide! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop In Germany we have no "predictive policing" to my knowledge, and even cameras and so on are used conservatively given how privacy sensitive we ware. Yet we've seen the exact same development over recent decades.

mensetmanusman 6y ago
NY police were working in Germany......... or low cost computation made entertainment extremely affordable and time consuming

misja111 6y ago

From the article that OP linked to: "Since Compstat was introduced, crime rates in New York City have dropped dramatically. From 1993 to 1995, the total crime rate declined 27.44 percent across the city." National crime rates dropped as well in that period but nowhere near 27%.

dv_dt 6y ago
Seems like national stats maybe lagged NYC a little, but from a slightly different range of 1994-2000 on this chart the drop was (eyballing) 35% for homicides. https://www.politico.com/interactives/2020/police-budget-spending-george-floyd-defund/ https://www.politico.com/interactives/2020/police-budget-spe...