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Police wont investigate armed robbery with a firearm if there is no body. They may if you hand it to them on a platter (license plate number from getaway vehicl

Police wont investigate armed robbery with a firearm if there is no body. They may if you hand it to them on a platter (license plate number from getaway vehicle for example) or if there is a string of incidents in a very specific area and time of day. But string of incidents just results in maybe more cops around in that time and place and not a real investigation. And most people who do the armed robbery racket will tell victims to look down and keep their eyes down and respond not pleasantly if you do too much to try and identify them very well. Police dont investigate property crimes unless its someone important enough or has sway gets involved or the media gets involved. Murders they do investigate, because they have incentives to get a clearance rate down. This does mean they dont actually care if you committed the crime, just that it gets "cleared". God help you if you dont have a alibi and your husband/wife end up dead. Expect ALOT of police attention. Rapes will get classified as he said / she said not rapes because that way their clearance/conviction rates stay good. I also find it somewhat odd that people trust what police have to say about crime rates, where they have incentives to make themselves look good, but dont trust police about well anything else these days.

BoorishBears 5y ago
What makes you think they have incentive to make themselves look good? The entire point of the thread is that they have incentive to fan the flames of fear to increase the budgeting. After all, the police aren't nearly as exposed to the effects of angry constituents as elected politicians are. So police love to pitch any sort of crime increase as a failing of budgeting or something
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  I used to work in law enforcement. Its a tails you lose, heads I win situation for the police. Generally speaking police leadership likes to justify their jobs with "crime numbers are going down" its an easy "objective" way to show they are effective and its the primary metric they try to game. Then its ask for more budget because we can make numbers go even more down with more resources. When crime numbers go up its "we need more resources!". Which is the traditional refrain of well every government agency that is not succeeding in their mission. And succeeding in their mission. Every agency is gonna ask for more money. Always and forever. Line officers dont care as much about overall metrics but have different incentives put on them. Their immediate leadership want numbers to look good too. No matter what way the number goes up or down there is a ready narrative that involves we need more budget. If number goes down, its my leadership caused this. If numbers go up then its external things fault. Typically speaking police chiefs like numbers to go down because it reflects well on them. Detectives like persuing cases that result in convictions because it makes them look good and promotable. Zone leadership likes numbers to go down because it makes them look good and promotable. If you are the Captain of the highest crime rate precinct you are less likely to get promoted than the one with a better rate. This trickles all the way down.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Generally speaking police leadership likes to justify their jobs with "crime numbers are going down" If that's what happening, sure, they use that to support “we're doing good and therefore should be given more resources to do more good.” If crime stats are flat or going down, they use that to argue “we are stretched to thin to effectively reduce crime, and therefore need more resources.” The input is irrelevant, the output is constant.
    - namelessoracle 5y ago
      The output to you the citizen is the same yes. The internal process inside the engine cares though. Police Chief's certainly care about the crime rate going down because they answer to whoever put them in their position depending on the city and that person or group cares about the number going down. The police captain cares because they want to be picked as the police chief one day and a "crime went down in my precinct" narrative helps that. The Sheriff cares because in the US that is an elected position, and "crime rate keeps going up with this Sheriff" is easy ammo for them to lose their position in an election. The police engine will produce the same output either way. (which is a great sign of necessary reform) But the people driving the engine would prefer it to be because of the rate going down that they ask for more money. And the people who put them in that position would prefer thats the reason they are asking for more money as well. Interestingly enough public education works the same way. Schools failing? Not enough resources! School succeeding? We need more to do more or to keep the status quo of doing well! Pretty much every government body has this feedback mechanism. Every organization for that matters. No large scale org ever says "we have enough resources right now thanks".

BoorishBears 5y ago

What makes you think they have incentive to make themselves look good? The entire point of the thread is that they have incentive to fan the flames of fear to increase the budgeting. After all, the police aren't nearly as exposed to the effects of angry constituents as elected politicians are. So police love to pitch any sort of crime increase as a failing of budgeting or something

namelessoracle 5y ago
I used to work in law enforcement. Its a tails you lose, heads I win situation for the police. Generally speaking police leadership likes to justify their jobs with "crime numbers are going down" its an easy "objective" way to show they are effective and its the primary metric they try to game. Then its ask for more budget because we can make numbers go even more down with more resources. When crime numbers go up its "we need more resources!". Which is the traditional refrain of well every government agency that is not succeeding in their mission. And succeeding in their mission. Every agency is gonna ask for more money. Always and forever. Line officers dont care as much about overall metrics but have different incentives put on them. Their immediate leadership want numbers to look good too. No matter what way the number goes up or down there is a ready narrative that involves we need more budget. If number goes down, its my leadership caused this. If numbers go up then its external things fault. Typically speaking police chiefs like numbers to go down because it reflects well on them. Detectives like persuing cases that result in convictions because it makes them look good and promotable. Zone leadership likes numbers to go down because it makes them look good and promotable. If you are the Captain of the highest crime rate precinct you are less likely to get promoted than the one with a better rate. This trickles all the way down.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Generally speaking police leadership likes to justify their jobs with "crime numbers are going down" If that's what happening, sure, they use that to support “we're doing good and therefore should be given more resources to do more good.” If crime stats are flat or going down, they use that to argue “we are stretched to thin to effectively reduce crime, and therefore need more resources.” The input is irrelevant, the output is constant.
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    The output to you the citizen is the same yes. The internal process inside the engine cares though. Police Chief's certainly care about the crime rate going down because they answer to whoever put them in their position depending on the city and that person or group cares about the number going down. The police captain cares because they want to be picked as the police chief one day and a "crime went down in my precinct" narrative helps that. The Sheriff cares because in the US that is an elected position, and "crime rate keeps going up with this Sheriff" is easy ammo for them to lose their position in an election. The police engine will produce the same output either way. (which is a great sign of necessary reform) But the people driving the engine would prefer it to be because of the rate going down that they ask for more money. And the people who put them in that position would prefer thats the reason they are asking for more money as well. Interestingly enough public education works the same way. Schools failing? Not enough resources! School succeeding? We need more to do more or to keep the status quo of doing well! Pretty much every government body has this feedback mechanism. Every organization for that matters. No large scale org ever says "we have enough resources right now thanks".