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According to the FBI, the national case clearance rate was 13.9% for burglary and 30.4% for robbery in 2018. That means that for the average US citizen who repo

• nullc 6y ago
  The (positive) effect of law enforcement include more than just case clearance rates. Think about how attractive a crime is when you have a 0.01% chance of going to jail for it vs a 13.9% chance of going to jail. A clearance rate could be only a few percent and still be an effective deterrent if the marginal benefit of the crime over some other activity is enough worse than the punishment. Also consider that a significant fraction of all crimes is committed by a small portion of the population. Even if we fail to send someone to jail for 90% of crimes they commit, eventually they are caught and removed from the community, preventing their future crimes -- stopping all the crimes they would have otherwise committed. The end point here isn't necessarily jail-- either, if they're caught once and scared straight the same thing applies.
  • xtian 6y ago
    This is a convenient self-justifying fantasy. You're straight up saying that police could fail to do anything about 97% of crimes and it would still be worth it for cities to dump 30-50% of their yearly budgets into them because "think of how bad it might be otherwise!" Be honest: do you apply such lax standards of effectiveness to any other area of your life? Would you pay 30% of your salary to go to a hospital that historically only cured 3% of patients? If so I've got some miracle leeches you might be interested in next time you're feeling ill. It's insane to me that people would rather dump hundreds of millions of dollars into a pointless effort to try to terrorize communities into law-abidance rather than invest that money into addressing some of the material desperation and crises in mental health which would actually make our communities nicer to live in for everyone.
    • mlyle 6y ago
      > This is a convenient self-justifying fantasy. Nah. This is completely reasonable. We tend to have punishments that are large multiples of the benefits of committing the crime, because people know they will not likely be caught. So, you face the situation of doing something that you 90% know you'll get away with, but the remaining 10% is really, really inconvenient. And if you keep rolling the dice, you'll get caught eventually. (And in a perfect world, would be rehabilitated). > Would you pay 30% of your salary to go to a hospital that historically only cured 3% of patients NNT's tend to be pretty high for most medical interventions. e.g. statins. No mortality benefit, you need to treat 217 to prevent one nonfatal heart attack, and you need to treat 313 people to prevent one nonfatal stroke-- so about 0.5% see a benefit. We pay a small percentage of our income to what becomes city budgets, so I think you're engaging in hyperbole to compare this small percentage of our salary that goes to policing to spending 30% of our salary. I am paying a bunch of money for home insurance and it only rarely helps anyone...
      • xtian 6y ago
        > We tend to have punishments that are large multiples of the benefits of committing the crime This is another fantasy. It's only true for certain types of people. Are the punishments for crimes committed by police officers scaled based on the likelihood of punishment? > NNT's tend to be pretty high for most medical interventions. e.g. statins. I would not pay 30% of my salary for statins. > We pay a small percentage of our income to what becomes city budgets All of the money that cities use to purchase police service comes from taxes. The question is not what percentage of an individual's income goes to police, but whether, from the perspective of the city, the overall allocation is an effective use of public funds.
        • mlyle 6y ago
          > Are the punishments for crimes committed by police officers scaled based on the likelihood of punishment? No, but they should be. > I would not pay 30% of my salary for statins. Do you pay 30% of your salary for policing? > The question is not what percentage of an individual's income goes to police, but whether, from the perspective of the city, the overall allocation is an effective use of public funds. That's an.. ahem.. interesting way to look at it. So if the city wastes twice as much money elsewhere, policing becomes a better deal? Or if the city gets 30 pennies, and uses 33% of it to stop a fraction of crime, that's a bad deal? It might be better to look at the services that residents receive in exchange for the amount they pay in taxes, instead of using some ridiculous metric based on fraction of one political entity's tax income. Otherwise we come up with ridiculous silly comparisons. The sheriff is a tiny proportion of my county's expenditures, and police are a big proportion of my city's expenditures... by your metric, the sheriff is more cost effective, despite costing nearly the exact same amount per capita for the people they're first responders for. (Because the county gets a much bigger share of tax income and spends a bunch on other services that my city doesn't have to pay for). Or if we're going with the health analogy-- we spend the overwhelming majority of our public health "income" on things with very high NNTs.
  • dylan604 6y ago
    Drug addicts looking for a quick crime to get cash for their next fix are not going to be sweating a 13.9% of going to jail, so that stat you are using is not relevant to real world criminal behavior. That stat instead holds sway over people that are not normally criminaly minded, but might find themselves in a situation presents itself. At that point, a >0% chance might make some think twice.
    • red75prime 6y ago
      13.9% of drugs addicts aren't going to do quick crimes, while in jail, though.
      • 23iofj 6y ago
        Too bad the recidivism rate is also firmly in the "shit that clearly does not work and is absolutely a fucking waste of tax dollars" range, then.
  • nsomaru 6y ago
    In South Africa, jails are where criminals go to level up.
  • leetcrew 6y ago
    pedantic perhaps, but a 13.9% clearance rate does not imply a 13.9% chance of going to jail. it implies a 13.9% chance of facing any charges at all.
• coredog64 6y ago
  Robbery is a violent crime: It’s the use (or threat) of force in taking someone else’s property. If someone picks your pocket, that’s theft. If someone steals something from your house while you’re at work, that’s burglary.
  • xtian 6y ago
    Those are the FBI's categories, not mine.
• coryrc 6y ago
  I live in Seattle. I don't bother reporting property crime. The police won't investigate, the prosecutor won't charge people. Property crime is far underreported.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
    Anecdata: Had my bike stolen DIRECTLY in front of a security camera in Seattle. The police didn't even bother to look for the plates on the car in the footage identify the person. They also wouldn't let me see the tape. They just showed up and said, "This is a cold case" and then left. I guess the illusion of them showing up gave me some sense of validation.
    • mlyle 6y ago
      On a really big share of these, the plates or car is stolen. And it's a lot of investigative work to go from a crappy CCTV picture of someone to a conviction. People committing property crimes will trip themselves up and get caught eventually, even if the probability of any individual case being solved is low.
  • GoodJokes 6y ago
    Police don’t solve problems. They punish. Are you looking to punish?
• deleted 6y ago
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• throwaway2037 6y ago
  First, for people who are unclear about the term "clearance rate"... I found this definition on Google: "charge being laid" (someone was charged with a crime). Second, as I understand burglary, it is a property crime, like breaking & entering into a home, business, or car. Robbery is person-to-person theft (stick-up by knife, gun, etc.) If we think about burglary for a moment, most burglaries happen when no one is around. Thus, imagine how difficult it is to have enough evidence to even lay a charge against someone. Vanishingly small. I'm not sure that is a good way to judge the effectiveness of police. I lived in an apartment building many years ago where someone got to the roof, then entered an open window and stole some things. The chances of catching this person are incredibly low. The police came to our building to ask questions and look at the inside of various apartments. The effort was made, but it would be nearly impossible to lay charges with so little tangible evidence. Third, think about robbery. When I think about robbery, I think about "wrong place, wrong time" -- on a street alone at night. What are the chances the police will be able to gather enough evidence to lay a charge? Again, vanishingly small. Lastly, about this clearance rate for these two crime categories: How does it compare to other high income countries like Canada, UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, etc.? I'm sure it is also fairly low.
  • xtian 6y ago
    The reasons you list are absolutely some of the reasons why police are not effective at addressing these forms of crime. And statistically they are not much better at addressing other forms of crime either. The point is that we should take the massive amount of funding that police receive in the US ($5.1 billion of which has gone towards military vehicles and equipment through the DOD 1033 program) and reallocate it to strategies which extend to people other options beyond a cycle of crime and punishment.
    • mlyle 6y ago
      > The point is that we should take the massive amount of funding that police receive in the US ($5.1 billion of which has gone towards military vehicles and equipment through the DOD 1033 program) and reallocate it to strategies which extend to people other options beyond a cycle of crime and punishment. See, e.g. here I'd agree with you totally: almost the entirety of that money spent on the militarization of police is worthless, or, worse, actively harmful. You don't need to make bullshit arguments to support it. Indeed, you weaken people's perceptions of the strength of the case when you give them bullshit arguments.