4 ms·

Moving from SF to Miami to get away from crime is an odd choice. The SF homicide rate is 6.9 per 100,000 people and the Miami rate is 10.7. I understand SF has

Moving from SF to Miami to get away from crime is an odd choice. The SF homicide rate is 6.9 per 100,000 people and the Miami rate is 10.7. I understand SF has a severe homeless problem but are actual crime rates that high compared to other big cities?

zapdrive 4y ago
Do people in Miami break your car window to steal your bag while you are driving it? https://youtu.be/j2efwceQ_0c https://youtu.be/j2efwceQ_0c
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  Did that thief ever end up getting caught? Presumably their license plate number is right there in the video? Do they ditch the license plate and/or car?
  - andromeduck 4y ago
    The cars/plates are usually stolen.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  Yes, just go to YouTube and search "Miami carjacking", lots of similar videos to what you have here...
  - 4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
    Any common patterns?
    - piva00 4y ago
      Is that a real question or rhetorics?
- AaronFriel 4y ago
  What prior do you have to think a particular city is exceptional, such as in the types of crime? I often hear claims like this, such as about catalytic converter theft, and I think: that happens back home in Midwest, rural Iowa. Des Moines, Iowa has a similar crime rate to San Francisco! There aren't order of magnitude differences between my small home town, where I was born, or any other town I could find. Don't let news reports overwhelm your availability heuristic. If crime rates are roughly similar everywhere, but some cities are more dense yet share a common news or media environment, what does that suggest?
  - trilbyglens 4y ago
    While the south has more crime, it also has less random crime. Probably California falls into the same bucket as the other northern states in having more random crime.
    - AaronFriel 4y ago
      Why do you believe that?
- olliej 4y ago
  Yes. People make a lot of noise about SF being a place where innovation happens, but criminals aren’t doing any of that. What you’re likely getting in SF is there being no meaningful gap between the rich areas of SF and the poor. In larger cities you aren’t going to get hyperventilating about “person driving through [high crime neighborhood] was car jacked” but you would if it was [rich low crime neighbourhood] - but the general case means that the majority of such crimes don’t get TV coverage. What is happening in SF is you have a large swathe of rich and upper middle class folk actually living in and around lower income neighbourhoods they’ve been able to avoid when they live in other cities. They rightly go “this crime is bad”, but their reason for it being bad is that for the first time they’re directly exposed to it. These are the people who say “we should ban homeless people”, but don’t give a shit what actually happens to them: they can remain homeless, what matters is that the homeless people don’t impact their lives.
  - Beaver117 4y ago
    You're saying SF isn't actually high crime, just most people happen to live in the high crime areas. That makes it high crime in my book.
    - remexre 4y ago
      Not "people" happen to live in high crime areas (of course people do anywhere -- crime can't occur without people!), but rich people, who write letters to newspapers that get nationally published, and complain on forums for technologists
    - olliej 4y ago
      I'm saying this is in the news because this is a case of "rich person encounters crime" vs the usual case which is "average people are victims of crime". An extreme scenario: When I was a student, a person broke into our flat and stole some stuff (but weirdly, despite clearly checking, none of my DVDs nor my SoundBlaster! Extigy :D). This did not even get into local news. But if someone had broken into BillG's house and judged his DVD collection to be similarly terrible that would be in the news. If you are saying the determining factor as to whether crime happens, or a crime rate is "high", is more heavily weighted by "does this crime impact the upper class?" I'm not sure what to say.
add-sub-mul-div 4y ago
There's a lot of performative outrage over crime in cities but it's best to treat it like noise. It's hard to know who's selling the message of fear vs. who's buying it.

zapdrive 4y ago

Do people in Miami break your car window to steal your bag while you are driving it? https://youtu.be/j2efwceQ_0c https://youtu.be/j2efwceQ_0c

unsupp0rted 4y ago
Did that thief ever end up getting caught? Presumably their license plate number is right there in the video? Do they ditch the license plate and/or car?
- andromeduck 4y ago
  The cars/plates are usually stolen.
iancmceachern 4y ago
Yes, just go to YouTube and search "Miami carjacking", lots of similar videos to what you have here...
- 4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
  Any common patterns?
  - piva00 4y ago
    Is that a real question or rhetorics?
AaronFriel 4y ago
What prior do you have to think a particular city is exceptional, such as in the types of crime? I often hear claims like this, such as about catalytic converter theft, and I think: that happens back home in Midwest, rural Iowa. Des Moines, Iowa has a similar crime rate to San Francisco! There aren't order of magnitude differences between my small home town, where I was born, or any other town I could find. Don't let news reports overwhelm your availability heuristic. If crime rates are roughly similar everywhere, but some cities are more dense yet share a common news or media environment, what does that suggest?
- trilbyglens 4y ago
  While the south has more crime, it also has less random crime. Probably California falls into the same bucket as the other northern states in having more random crime.
  - AaronFriel 4y ago
    Why do you believe that?
olliej 4y ago
Yes. People make a lot of noise about SF being a place where innovation happens, but criminals aren’t doing any of that. What you’re likely getting in SF is there being no meaningful gap between the rich areas of SF and the poor. In larger cities you aren’t going to get hyperventilating about “person driving through [high crime neighborhood] was car jacked” but you would if it was [rich low crime neighbourhood] - but the general case means that the majority of such crimes don’t get TV coverage. What is happening in SF is you have a large swathe of rich and upper middle class folk actually living in and around lower income neighbourhoods they’ve been able to avoid when they live in other cities. They rightly go “this crime is bad”, but their reason for it being bad is that for the first time they’re directly exposed to it. These are the people who say “we should ban homeless people”, but don’t give a shit what actually happens to them: they can remain homeless, what matters is that the homeless people don’t impact their lives.
- Beaver117 4y ago
  You're saying SF isn't actually high crime, just most people happen to live in the high crime areas. That makes it high crime in my book.
  - remexre 4y ago
    Not "people" happen to live in high crime areas (of course people do anywhere -- crime can't occur without people!), but rich people, who write letters to newspapers that get nationally published, and complain on forums for technologists
  - olliej 4y ago
    I'm saying this is in the news because this is a case of "rich person encounters crime" vs the usual case which is "average people are victims of crime". An extreme scenario: When I was a student, a person broke into our flat and stole some stuff (but weirdly, despite clearly checking, none of my DVDs nor my SoundBlaster! Extigy :D). This did not even get into local news. But if someone had broken into BillG's house and judged his DVD collection to be similarly terrible that would be in the news. If you are saying the determining factor as to whether crime happens, or a crime rate is "high", is more heavily weighted by "does this crime impact the upper class?" I'm not sure what to say.

add-sub-mul-div 4y ago

There's a lot of performative outrage over crime in cities but it's best to treat it like noise. It's hard to know who's selling the message of fear vs. who's buying it.