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Sure. I agree. But crime is measured by individuals relatively. The cities were very safe until the summer riots and the defund the police nonsense. Now crime

Sure. I agree. But crime is measured by individuals relatively. The cities were very safe until the summer riots and the defund the police nonsense. Now crime is very clearly increasing despite the initial persistent denial of this obvious fact by certain politicians. Regardless of what the stats say, anyone with sense realizes this will drive people away from cities. Yes they are descending into chaos in the only way that matters... Relatively. Just today, my pregnant wife and daughter couldn't use our local public restroom because a junkie was shooting up. These sorts of interactions didn't even happen a year and a half ago. Now they're common. Surely you can see how this using to end if we keep up the denial that this is a problem by resting on our laurels.

whakim 5y ago
But this isn't how people actually perceive crime: Pew has been polling Americans for decades about it [1], and Americans have consistently said that crime is rising even though that's almost never been the case. So as "measured by individuals relatively," nothing has changed. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about...
- iammisc 5y ago
  Okay, but crime is actually rising now in 2021 and late 2020, at least in my city of Portland. Again, I was not part of the people who have said over the last decade that crime is rising, because it's not. I'm just pointing out that it is right now, so these same people are going to become even more concerned, spooked, and make choices respecting that. This is what I don't understand about most people, especially those who look to the government for solutions. Instead of accepting people as they are, the arguments are over whether those people are wrong. If you want to influence human behavior, first you have to understand how they behave, not tell them their behavior is wrong.
  - whakim 5y ago
    > So these same people are going to become even more concerned, spooked, and make choices respecting that. That's exactly what I'm arguing against - where is the evidence that people are "more concerned"? The evidence suggests that people's concerns have no relationship to actual crime rates. Your statements about cities "descending into chaos" could have just as easily come from 1995, or 2005, or 2015. > This is what I don't understand about most people, especially those who look to the government for solutions. Instead of accepting people as they are, the arguments are over whether those people are wrong. If you want to influence human behavior, first you have to understand how they behave, not tell them their behavior is wrong. I'm not telling anyone their behavior is wrong. I'm saying that I don't think it's a good idea to base public policy primarily on peoples' perceptions of crime rates when those perceptions don't seem to have any bearing on reality. (Consider the counterfactual: if crime rates were continuously rising, and everyone thought they were decreasing, should we do nothing?) I think we should instead look at the actual facts on the ground before going crazy with the "cities decesnding into chaos" narrative: 1) violent crime rose 3% in 2020; 2) nonviolent crime actually fell in 2020; 3) the rise in violent crime was fueled by a rise in murder specifically - but murder rates have actually been rising since 2014 so this isn't a new phenomenon. This isn't a policy prescription and crime is not a simple subject, but I think if we want to solve issues (crime and homelessness) we have to be able to agree about a basic set of facts on the ground without resorting to hyperbole.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      > Your statements about cities "descending into chaos" could have just as easily come from 1995, or 2005, or 2015. Except right now they're backed by an actual recent increase in crime! You yourself said: > ; 3) the rise in violent crime was fueled by a rise in murder specifically - but murder rates have actually been rising since 2014 so this isn't a new phenomenon. So how can you both say the facts are that murder has increased, even though overall crime has decreased, but that people's perceptions of crime are wrong in that they believe it's increased. It's no wonder people think violence has increased... as you yourself said, there are more murders! Here's yet another gotcha when evaluating crime stats: the idea that any crime is interchangeable is silly. Some crimes are many orders of magnitude worse than others.
danShumway 5y ago
> The cities were very safe until the summer riots and the defund the police nonsense. Quick reminder, there isn't any clear correlation between police defunding and the recent increase in crime. Cities that never defunded the police, cities that even increased police funding -- they've still seen increases in crime. And even in cities that did reduce police funding, many of the trends we're seeing now started before funding was cut, so the timing doesn't make sense. People have a perception that police budgets across the entire country were all slashed because that's just how the cultural conversation happened, but the rhetoric is not the reality. ---- My take: anyone who tells you they know for certain why crime is increasing is either overconfident or lying. I am personally of the opinion that COVID is a very probable explanation. 600,000 people have died, a large number of businesses have gone under, schooling was disrupted, industries and income were disrupted, homeless shelters became dangerous and behaviors on streets were adjusted accordingly. Not to mention that there was a pretty decent chunk of time where a lot less people were going outside and traveling through certain districts. To me, the timing lines up really well and it was a consistent event across the entire country that helps explain why crime might be spiking in multiple otherwise unrelated cities. BUT even I am not going to claim with complete certainty that COVID is the cause, we don't have enough data for that. If I tried to tell you COVID was the obvious cause, I would be lying too. It could be related to economics, it could be a cultural shift, it could be some other cause that hasn't even been proposed. We don't know. I am reasonably certain though that defunding the police was not the cause. The data just doesn't line up well enough for that theory to make sense to me.
- iammisc 5y ago
  I believe that the rhetoric around defunding the police causes crime. If you accuse your own society of being evil, then it should come as no surprise that some take that as license to stop following its precepts. It's like how many left the church after the truth about the child abuse coverups came out. You cannot simultaneously say the justice system is biased and unfair, and then expect people to act justly. Doesn't matter how much you fund or don't fund your police. The most important kind of policing is that which every individual exercises over himself, based on his/her internalization of society's norms. If you undercut the internalized voice of society by calling people to question it unnecessarily, then you ought to expect poor behavior. So I'll say it again, the rhetoric around defunding the police/ACAB/etc is terrible. This has been studied over and over again, and shown to be correlated with a crime increase. As an aside, I think this is just another form of gaslighting. Take my city of Portland, for example. Although technically police funding hasn't been reduced very drastically, the city disbanded the gun violence reduction team, which was doing the on the ground work necessary to keep people safe. While the force wasn't defunded, they were castrated essentially. This team was formed to combat exactly the kinds of crimes we're seeing now, by charging the would-be perpetrators with the lesser crimes they commit before they kill people.

whakim 5y ago

But this isn't how people actually perceive crime: Pew has been polling Americans for decades about it [1], and Americans have consistently said that crime is rising even though that's almost never been the case. So as "measured by individuals relatively," nothing has changed. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about...

iammisc 5y ago
Okay, but crime is actually rising now in 2021 and late 2020, at least in my city of Portland. Again, I was not part of the people who have said over the last decade that crime is rising, because it's not. I'm just pointing out that it is right now, so these same people are going to become even more concerned, spooked, and make choices respecting that. This is what I don't understand about most people, especially those who look to the government for solutions. Instead of accepting people as they are, the arguments are over whether those people are wrong. If you want to influence human behavior, first you have to understand how they behave, not tell them their behavior is wrong.
- whakim 5y ago
  > So these same people are going to become even more concerned, spooked, and make choices respecting that. That's exactly what I'm arguing against - where is the evidence that people are "more concerned"? The evidence suggests that people's concerns have no relationship to actual crime rates. Your statements about cities "descending into chaos" could have just as easily come from 1995, or 2005, or 2015. > This is what I don't understand about most people, especially those who look to the government for solutions. Instead of accepting people as they are, the arguments are over whether those people are wrong. If you want to influence human behavior, first you have to understand how they behave, not tell them their behavior is wrong. I'm not telling anyone their behavior is wrong. I'm saying that I don't think it's a good idea to base public policy primarily on peoples' perceptions of crime rates when those perceptions don't seem to have any bearing on reality. (Consider the counterfactual: if crime rates were continuously rising, and everyone thought they were decreasing, should we do nothing?) I think we should instead look at the actual facts on the ground before going crazy with the "cities decesnding into chaos" narrative: 1) violent crime rose 3% in 2020; 2) nonviolent crime actually fell in 2020; 3) the rise in violent crime was fueled by a rise in murder specifically - but murder rates have actually been rising since 2014 so this isn't a new phenomenon. This isn't a policy prescription and crime is not a simple subject, but I think if we want to solve issues (crime and homelessness) we have to be able to agree about a basic set of facts on the ground without resorting to hyperbole.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    > Your statements about cities "descending into chaos" could have just as easily come from 1995, or 2005, or 2015. Except right now they're backed by an actual recent increase in crime! You yourself said: > ; 3) the rise in violent crime was fueled by a rise in murder specifically - but murder rates have actually been rising since 2014 so this isn't a new phenomenon. So how can you both say the facts are that murder has increased, even though overall crime has decreased, but that people's perceptions of crime are wrong in that they believe it's increased. It's no wonder people think violence has increased... as you yourself said, there are more murders! Here's yet another gotcha when evaluating crime stats: the idea that any crime is interchangeable is silly. Some crimes are many orders of magnitude worse than others.

danShumway 5y ago

> The cities were very safe until the summer riots and the defund the police nonsense. Quick reminder, there isn't any clear correlation between police defunding and the recent increase in crime. Cities that never defunded the police, cities that even increased police funding -- they've still seen increases in crime. And even in cities that did reduce police funding, many of the trends we're seeing now started before funding was cut, so the timing doesn't make sense. People have a perception that police budgets across the entire country were all slashed because that's just how the cultural conversation happened, but the rhetoric is not the reality. ---- My take: anyone who tells you they know for certain why crime is increasing is either overconfident or lying. I am personally of the opinion that COVID is a very probable explanation. 600,000 people have died, a large number of businesses have gone under, schooling was disrupted, industries and income were disrupted, homeless shelters became dangerous and behaviors on streets were adjusted accordingly. Not to mention that there was a pretty decent chunk of time where a lot less people were going outside and traveling through certain districts. To me, the timing lines up really well and it was a consistent event across the entire country that helps explain why crime might be spiking in multiple otherwise unrelated cities. BUT even I am not going to claim with complete certainty that COVID is the cause, we don't have enough data for that. If I tried to tell you COVID was the obvious cause, I would be lying too. It could be related to economics, it could be a cultural shift, it could be some other cause that hasn't even been proposed. We don't know. I am reasonably certain though that defunding the police was not the cause. The data just doesn't line up well enough for that theory to make sense to me.

iammisc 5y ago
I believe that the rhetoric around defunding the police causes crime. If you accuse your own society of being evil, then it should come as no surprise that some take that as license to stop following its precepts. It's like how many left the church after the truth about the child abuse coverups came out. You cannot simultaneously say the justice system is biased and unfair, and then expect people to act justly. Doesn't matter how much you fund or don't fund your police. The most important kind of policing is that which every individual exercises over himself, based on his/her internalization of society's norms. If you undercut the internalized voice of society by calling people to question it unnecessarily, then you ought to expect poor behavior. So I'll say it again, the rhetoric around defunding the police/ACAB/etc is terrible. This has been studied over and over again, and shown to be correlated with a crime increase. As an aside, I think this is just another form of gaslighting. Take my city of Portland, for example. Although technically police funding hasn't been reduced very drastically, the city disbanded the gun violence reduction team, which was doing the on the ground work necessary to keep people safe. While the force wasn't defunded, they were castrated essentially. This team was formed to combat exactly the kinds of crimes we're seeing now, by charging the would-be perpetrators with the lesser crimes they commit before they kill people.