3 ms·

The police can control any election they want by simply adjusting how well they do their job - A key concern for voters is crime - People often blame elected

The police can control any election they want by simply adjusting how well they do their job - A key concern for voters is crime - People often blame elected official for problems regardless of fault - the police often have strong union protection making it difficult to terminate officers - (opinion) people rarely blame the police for an increase in crime

komali2 4y ago
> (opinion) people rarely blame the police for an increase in crime I see blame in every direction but what's funny is if they're blaming cops for uptick in crime, it's because of a perception of the cops working less, when it seems that when cops work less, crime goes down: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-stop-yet-crime-dropped/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-...
- thephyber 4y ago
  That was an interesting natural experiment. But… I wouldn’t pretend like that correlation is causation: - police departments control the official crime metrics - there were fewer officers to write the paperwork that officially tracks crimes - when the “blue flu” happens publicly, more crime victims will avoid reporting out of frustration I highly doubt criminals took a holiday when police decided to coordinate minimum work days.
  - komali2 4y ago
    > During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant. But the arrest rate for non-major crime and narcotic offenses dropped, as did the number of stop-and-frisk events. It took until mid-January for things to begin to return to normal.
    - thephyber 4y ago
      Do you believe that quote supports or refutes my comment?
      - komali2 4y ago
        Refutes, it wasn't that people were reporting less crime or that cops weren't responding to violent crimes. It seems "active enforcement," or police departments going out of their way to "do policing," leads to an increase in actual crime committed.
        thephyber 4y ago
        I’m not sure that’s the only possible interpretation. Crimes aren’t always reported. Stop-and-frisk mostly turns up crimes such as illegal possession of weapon, illegal possession of substance, and parole violation. None of these are likely to be reported by by anyone because the nature of them is mostly that only the participants in the crime know about the crime. Also, I’m not making any moral or ethical claims above. I dislike stop-and-frisk because it is too subjective, not targeted enough, and corrodes the trust between police and citizens that benefit most from that trust. I’m also not making similar judgements about which actions should be crimes in the law — I’m sure we have too many. But I do highly value talking honestly about the data we use for policy decisions. And in the context of the Vallejo article, I think corrupt police departments very much increase crime in their jurisdictions. I was in LA when the Rampart District scandal became public and I was nearby when LAPD brass tried to figure out how to handle it.
- x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
  The problem is confounded by what exactly you are measuring. You can't measure crime directly, but you can measure arrests/tickets and reports of crime. Various municipalities even try to adjust their crime statistics by making it harder for some victims to report petty crime.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Someone mentioned this later but "This included fewer tickets and a huge drop in arrests...During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant. But the arrest rate for non-major crime and narcotic offenses dropped, as did the number of stop-and-frisk events." When people start to worry in mass about crime rates it's not because of an increase in moving violations. However the article you posted does show a counterintuitive view of what would happen if police have a slow down. I found this https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379438 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379438 and it seems to help your point by at least showing constant or minimal increases in crime. I'll admit I made those points because it seems intuitive, that if someone is a criminal they would be less hesitant to commit crimes if they thought they wouldn't get caught. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

komali2 4y ago

> (opinion) people rarely blame the police for an increase in crime I see blame in every direction but what's funny is if they're blaming cops for uptick in crime, it's because of a perception of the cops working less, when it seems that when cops work less, crime goes down: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-stop-yet-crime-dropped/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-...

thephyber 4y ago
That was an interesting natural experiment. But… I wouldn’t pretend like that correlation is causation: - police departments control the official crime metrics - there were fewer officers to write the paperwork that officially tracks crimes - when the “blue flu” happens publicly, more crime victims will avoid reporting out of frustration I highly doubt criminals took a holiday when police decided to coordinate minimum work days.
- komali2 4y ago
  > During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant. But the arrest rate for non-major crime and narcotic offenses dropped, as did the number of stop-and-frisk events. It took until mid-January for things to begin to return to normal.
  - thephyber 4y ago
    Do you believe that quote supports or refutes my comment?
    - komali2 4y ago
      Refutes, it wasn't that people were reporting less crime or that cops weren't responding to violent crimes. It seems "active enforcement," or police departments going out of their way to "do policing," leads to an increase in actual crime committed.
      - thephyber 4y ago
        I’m not sure that’s the only possible interpretation. Crimes aren’t always reported. Stop-and-frisk mostly turns up crimes such as illegal possession of weapon, illegal possession of substance, and parole violation. None of these are likely to be reported by by anyone because the nature of them is mostly that only the participants in the crime know about the crime. Also, I’m not making any moral or ethical claims above. I dislike stop-and-frisk because it is too subjective, not targeted enough, and corrodes the trust between police and citizens that benefit most from that trust. I’m also not making similar judgements about which actions should be crimes in the law — I’m sure we have too many. But I do highly value talking honestly about the data we use for policy decisions. And in the context of the Vallejo article, I think corrupt police departments very much increase crime in their jurisdictions. I was in LA when the Rampart District scandal became public and I was nearby when LAPD brass tried to figure out how to handle it.
x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
The problem is confounded by what exactly you are measuring. You can't measure crime directly, but you can measure arrests/tickets and reports of crime. Various municipalities even try to adjust their crime statistics by making it harder for some victims to report petty crime.
themitigating 4y ago
Someone mentioned this later but "This included fewer tickets and a huge drop in arrests...During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant. But the arrest rate for non-major crime and narcotic offenses dropped, as did the number of stop-and-frisk events." When people start to worry in mass about crime rates it's not because of an increase in moving violations. However the article you posted does show a counterintuitive view of what would happen if police have a slow down. I found this https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379438 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379438 and it seems to help your point by at least showing constant or minimal increases in crime. I'll admit I made those points because it seems intuitive, that if someone is a criminal they would be less hesitant to commit crimes if they thought they wouldn't get caught. But that doesn't seem to be the case.