4 ms·

Selection bias is a cheap canned answer, but it doesn't make any sense here. Sensational unsolved crimes make the news. The public hearing about crimes isn't

Selection bias is a cheap canned answer, but it doesn't make any sense here. Sensational unsolved crimes make the news. The public hearing about crimes isn't conditional on those crimes being solves. Arguably some of the most enduringly notorious crimes are the ones that go unsolved. The Zodiac Killer; never been caught. "D.B. Cooper", never caught. The presumed murder of Jimmy Hoffa, unsolved.

the-dude 5y ago
The best crimes do not look like crimes. The police does not put out press releases repeatedly with 'we got no leads'. Such cases fade fast.
- dogorman 5y ago
  > The best crimes do not look like crimes. Sure, but there is really no shortage of known unsolved crimes. > The police does not put out press releases repeatedly with 'we got no leads'. They do, in all the cases I listed they've asked the public for help for years. Certainly they don't do that for crimes they don't know occurred, but there is no shortage of known crimes that are very publicly unsolved. For that matter, there are also a whole lot of missing person bulletins soliciting information from the public. Many of them might be murder victims, but it isn't known whether they are really alive or dead, let alone murdered. The public is nonetheless asked for information.
  - adventured 5y ago
    > Sure, but there is really no shortage of known unsolved crimes. That's certainly the nice way to put it - "If you're murdered in America, there's a 1 in 3 chance that the police won't identify your killer. To use the FBI's terminology, the national "clearance rate" for homicide today is 64.1 percent. Fifty years ago, it was more than 90 percent." ... "Criminologists estimate that at least 200,000 murders have gone unsolved since the 1960s" https://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/395069137/open-cases-why-one-third-of-murders-in-america-go-unresolved https://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/395069137/open-cases-why-one-...
    - dogorman 5y ago
      Yes, police are pretty good at solving "the spouse did it" crimes, the most obvious sort. When the victims were chosen randomly, the clearance rate becomes abysmal. They're also bad at solving crimes when the victims come from the marginalized fringes of society. Jack the Ripper is a famous unsolved case of a serial killer who targeted prostitutes more than a century ago. Modern examples include the Long Island killer, the Eastbound Strangler, and plenty more. When the existence of such a serial killer is recognized, it tends to make the news at least regionally. Sometimes they become internationally famous for many years. But to my point, the public hearing about it is not contingent on the culprit being caught. If anything, the ones who are caught fast and easy tend to make the least amount of news. You can 'juice' unsolved crimes for stories a century after the fact, but stories that follow the "husband did it and we caught him" format tend to disappear from the news after the culprit has been sentenced.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        Except for when the husband didn't do it after being convicted, where it turns out the wife was having an affair with a golf pro, and someone comes in and kills them both. I bet that one would even lend itself into making a great movie.
        chris_va 5y ago
        What, would you have an entire movie with the husband sitting in prison slowly whittling away the time with a rock hammer? Never would get funded.
        dogorman 5y ago
        Cast Harrison Ford as the wrongfully accused husband. Have him escape after his bus to the prison crashes, then have Tommy Lee Jones as a US Marshal chase Ford down while Ford is trying to prove his innocence. Might just make for a blockbuster movie.
      - vmception 5y ago
  - the-dude 5y ago
    The Dutch police has a cold case team, yes. For cold cases ( there is even a word for it ) which have not seen progress or public attention for year, some even decades.
    - praptak 5y ago
      I think most police forces have one. A decade might mean there's new tech that can move the case forward or the criminal got caught for something else and it's just a matter of connecting the cases.
klyrs 5y ago
I happen to know somebody who was involved in the investigation of highly professional heist. The bank wanted to keep it quiet, and I can't find much other than this one article about the incident. I was gonna call it movie-worthy, but it's not, because there were no salacious details, no close calls, just in&out and no funny business. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19980804&slug=2764715 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19980804&slug...

the-dude 5y ago

The best crimes do not look like crimes. The police does not put out press releases repeatedly with 'we got no leads'. Such cases fade fast.

dogorman 5y ago
> The best crimes do not look like crimes. Sure, but there is really no shortage of known unsolved crimes. > The police does not put out press releases repeatedly with 'we got no leads'. They do, in all the cases I listed they've asked the public for help for years. Certainly they don't do that for crimes they don't know occurred, but there is no shortage of known crimes that are very publicly unsolved. For that matter, there are also a whole lot of missing person bulletins soliciting information from the public. Many of them might be murder victims, but it isn't known whether they are really alive or dead, let alone murdered. The public is nonetheless asked for information.
- adventured 5y ago
  > Sure, but there is really no shortage of known unsolved crimes. That's certainly the nice way to put it - "If you're murdered in America, there's a 1 in 3 chance that the police won't identify your killer. To use the FBI's terminology, the national "clearance rate" for homicide today is 64.1 percent. Fifty years ago, it was more than 90 percent." ... "Criminologists estimate that at least 200,000 murders have gone unsolved since the 1960s" https://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/395069137/open-cases-why-one-third-of-murders-in-america-go-unresolved https://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/395069137/open-cases-why-one-...
  - dogorman 5y ago
    Yes, police are pretty good at solving "the spouse did it" crimes, the most obvious sort. When the victims were chosen randomly, the clearance rate becomes abysmal. They're also bad at solving crimes when the victims come from the marginalized fringes of society. Jack the Ripper is a famous unsolved case of a serial killer who targeted prostitutes more than a century ago. Modern examples include the Long Island killer, the Eastbound Strangler, and plenty more. When the existence of such a serial killer is recognized, it tends to make the news at least regionally. Sometimes they become internationally famous for many years. But to my point, the public hearing about it is not contingent on the culprit being caught. If anything, the ones who are caught fast and easy tend to make the least amount of news. You can 'juice' unsolved crimes for stories a century after the fact, but stories that follow the "husband did it and we caught him" format tend to disappear from the news after the culprit has been sentenced.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Except for when the husband didn't do it after being convicted, where it turns out the wife was having an affair with a golf pro, and someone comes in and kills them both. I bet that one would even lend itself into making a great movie.
      - chris_va 5y ago
        What, would you have an entire movie with the husband sitting in prison slowly whittling away the time with a rock hammer? Never would get funded.
        dogorman 5y ago
        Cast Harrison Ford as the wrongfully accused husband. Have him escape after his bus to the prison crashes, then have Tommy Lee Jones as a US Marshal chase Ford down while Ford is trying to prove his innocence. Might just make for a blockbuster movie.
    - vmception 5y ago
- the-dude 5y ago
  The Dutch police has a cold case team, yes. For cold cases ( there is even a word for it ) which have not seen progress or public attention for year, some even decades.
  - praptak 5y ago
    I think most police forces have one. A decade might mean there's new tech that can move the case forward or the criminal got caught for something else and it's just a matter of connecting the cases.

klyrs 5y ago

I happen to know somebody who was involved in the investigation of highly professional heist. The bank wanted to keep it quiet, and I can't find much other than this one article about the incident. I was gonna call it movie-worthy, but it's not, because there were no salacious details, no close calls, just in&out and no funny business. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19980804&slug=2764715 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19980804&slug...