12 ms·

What the data says about crime in the U.S.

49 points by gmays 3y ago

User23 3y ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Meanwhile murders, which are the one violent crime whose statistics are extremely hard to game or underreport, on account of dead bodies being attention getting, are still way up from the post crack war lows. But... that's not true? 1900-2001: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homicide_rates1900-2001.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homicide_rates1900-2... 1991-2022: https://www.statista.com/chart/31062/us-homicide-rate/ https://www.statista.com/chart/31062/us-homicide-rate/ We're at one of the lowest historical rates since the early 1960s.
- MarkusQ 3y ago
  You're the one who brought up the "crack wars" narrative; the article doesn't mention crack at all. It does, however, state (contrary to your claim) that murders are _down_ (by 34%). If you are taking a narrower view of "still" and only counting the Covid era spike (generally agreed to be due to people being forced to spend more time in small, socially isolated groups) I would note that 1) this still has nothing to do with crack and 2) it would be an example of exactly the sort of cherry picking you claim to object to.
- glitcher 3y ago
  Personally I'm more interested in how things are trending more recently, so the high starting points of these graphs in the 90's aren't really what I care about. But even selecting graph midpoints to roughly estimate the last 15 years instead of 30, there are clear downward trends. To me the more important point is that the majority of people surveyed each year feel like crime increases every year, whether or not it actually does. It's a good example of the biases at play with public perception.
genman 3y ago
The problem with such data is always the reporting threshold. Crime level might be high but crime doesn't get reported.
- verdverm 3y ago
  There will always be unreported crimes. What matters more is changes to crime and reporting rates. Given all data sets show that crimes have dropped significantly - If the reporting rate for crimes has been steady or increased, then we can conclude crime has indeed decreased - Only if the reporting rate for crimes has decreased do we not know the effect. It would be dependent on the magnitudes of each They get into some of this data in the piece
  - genman 3y ago
    Like I told - there is problem with threshold changes. If the thresholds are manipulated then it will lower also reported crime rates but the apparent crime rate based on personal experiences circulating in the population will paint a different picture. For example if somebody gets mugged but the value of the loss is below the threshold then it will not get reported but the crime still happened and the fact is shared in the population and this affects the perceived crime rate within the population.
- AmVess 3y ago
  The problem also: major cities have simply stopped reporting crime at all. Further, crimes go unreported because police have stopped responding to many of them. And then you have the other neat new thing of all races being listed as white.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > The problem also: major cities have simply stopped reporting crime at all. I promise you, no major city has ceased to report and respond to homicides, where we continue to statistically enjoy one of the safest couple of decades in American history.
d_burfoot 3y ago
> There were no major differences in violent crime victimization rates between male and female respondents or between those who identified as White, Black or Hispanic. This statement is profoundly misleading, calling into question the validity of the entire article. Black Americans are much more likely to be homicide victims than any other group. The fact that the general category of "violent crime victimization" appears to be equal for all 3 groups probably just means that there are huge differences in what gets reported. A street fight in an affluent white neighborhood probably means that the cops get involved, the same level of altercation in a majority black area probably does not involve police.
- zaphar 3y ago
  They come armed with statistical data. You come with a statement of fact that you don't support with any data. While I might be predisposed to believe you, you do not in fact offer any support for doing so.
- tgv 3y ago
  That came from self-reported survey data, a well-known source for manufacturing statistics.
- cantSpellSober 3y ago
  Can you share data to back that statement up please? I think what they were getting at is that crime is more closely linked to age and economic status than race > younger people and those with lower incomes were far more likely to report being the victim of a violent crime than older and higher-income people
  - reissbaker 3y ago
    Not the OP, but this Wikipedia article seems like it does a decent job of covering the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...
    - 3y ago
photochemsyn 3y ago
[flagged]
Invictus0 3y ago
> In 2022, those who are male, younger people and those who are Black accounted for considerably larger shares of perceived offenders in violent incidents than their respective shares of the U.S. population. Men, for instance, accounted for 79% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, compared with 49% of the nation’s 12-and-older population that year. Black Americans accounted for 25% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, about twice their share of the 12-and-older population (12%). Extremely misleading paragraph. It implies that Black Americans are maligned for being criminals more than their true share of the population; but the arrest data shows that blacks are 27% of all those arrested, and more than 50% of those arrested for murder. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/table-43 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  And you think arrest rates are unaffected by racism? Traffic stops lose their racial disparity when the sun goes down (and cleverly, the control here was daylight savings time - the disparity jumps suddenly by an hour when DST goes into/out of effect) and cops can't see the occupants of cars as well. https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-racial-bias-traffic-stops/ https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-r...
  - joey443 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      It isn't true, though. https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/06/racial_disparities_traffic_stops.php https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/06/racial_disparities_traffi... > Blacks were 63 percent more likely to be stopped even though, as a whole, they drive 16 percent less. Taking into account less time on the road, blacks were about 95 percent more likely to be stopped. Blacks were 115 percent more likely than whites to be searched in a traffic stop (5.05 percent for blacks, 2.35 percent for whites). Contraband was more likely to be found in searches of white drivers. > “So, black drivers were stopped disproportionately more than white drivers compared to the local population and were at least twice as likely to be searched, but they were slightly less likely to get a ticket,” Shoub says. “That correlates with the idea that black drivers were stopped on the pretext of having done something wrong, and when the officer doesn’t see in the car what he thought he might, he tells them to go on their way.” (Even if it were, the SEC still isn't allowed to warrantless raids on white people just because they statistically commit more white-collar crimes.)
EcommerceFlow 3y ago
The article provides an alright overview but omits a critical aspect: the correlation between race and crime rates is strikingly high. For example, FBI data shows vast differences in murder rates by race: African American: 33.6 homicides per 100,000 people American Indian and Alaska Native: 12.9 per 100,000 Hispanic: 6.9 per 100,000 White: 3.3 per 100,000 Asian and Pacific Islander: 1.7 per 100,000 There are other crimes in which the numbers are flipped, such as gambling and financial crimes. If we're serious about making things better and stopping violence, or whatever crime, we need to be upfront about who it's impacting the most and why.
- underseacables 3y ago
  I think a lot of crime Statistics are twisted and misreported to meet political agendas. One side doesn't want to give the other side any ammunition.
  - fullshark 3y ago
    This is the case with literally everything and every large scale social argument, both sides selectively choose facts that align with their agenda. This is why newspapers which have editors (that selectively choose stories) and writers (that selectively choose what facts go into those stories and what "context" to provide) are propagandists and always will be. Now that we have techonlogists who are replacing both with algorithms that pattern will extend most likely, to the algorithm designers.
- joey443 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - verdverm 3y ago
    Domestic policy may not "fix" it globally, but America could show leadership on improving the situation
  - RajT88 3y ago
    [flagged]
claytongulick 3y ago
Data is only reported through 2022. Concern about rampant retail theft forcing major store closures has risen over the past two years. Also curious whether this includes crimes in areas that have a dollar limit on what will be prosecuted. Are those even reported? It's not an illusion that locks are appearing in retail in certain areas. That's a new thing. I don't believe those stores would be doing that if they had other choices.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Concern about rampant retail theft forcing major store closures has risen over the past two years. That's what they told investors to explain losses, at least. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-may-have-overstated-theft-concerns.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-may-have-overstate... "A top Walgreens executive on Thursday acknowledged the company may have overblown concerns about thefts in their stores after shrinkage stabilized over the last year... 'Maybe we cried too much last year,' Kehoe said. 'We’re stabilized,' he added, saying the company is 'quite happy with where we are.'" https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shoplifting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli... "The San Francisco Police Department’s data on shoplifting did not support Walgreen’s explanation for the store closings, according to an October 2021 analysis by The San Francisco Chronicle. The analysis said that while not all shoplifting incidents were reported to the police, one of the stores that closed had only seven reported shoplifting incidents in 2021 and a total of 23 since 2018."
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - claytongulick 3y ago
    Is your point that you don't believe that people's concern about rising crime is valid?
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      Absolutely. Humans are horrible at assessing such things. Statistically we live in one of the most safe and stable societies in human history. Especially when significant amounts of propaganda - from police unions, bleeds-it-leads media, tough-on-crime politicians, companies trying to explain their quarterly loss as anything other than "our CEO fucked up" - are in play.
Glyptodon 3y ago
At least in my area homelessness is pretty tied to perception of crime, if not actual crime. And it's seemingly been going up a rather solid amount over the last five or ten years.
jmyeet 3y ago
Consider these three findings together: 1. Americans are more worried about crime; 2. Crime is down regardless of source; and 3. Concern about crime is national not local. This is manufactured consent in action. Politicians hype up crime panic. The media amplifies that message. Why you see a disparity between local and national crime is because people see crime isn't out of control in their local communities so they think the crime wave must be elsewhere.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Perceptions of crime are sharply up both locally and nationally, but with local perceptions maintaining a higher value than local. This is perfectly expected because crime is extremely unevenly distributed.
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  > 2. Crime is down regardless of source; You left out "Since 1990's" ...
pdonis 3y ago
One factor that I think the article glosses over is the geographic distribution of crime. It briefly mentions some variations by state, but does not talk at all about variation by local area. It briefly mentions that the FBI says population density and economic conditions can affect crime rates, but gives no data.

49 points by gmays 3y ago

User23 3y ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 3y ago
> Meanwhile murders, which are the one violent crime whose statistics are extremely hard to game or underreport, on account of dead bodies being attention getting, are still way up from the post crack war lows. But... that's not true? 1900-2001: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homicide_rates1900-2001.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homicide_rates1900-2... 1991-2022: https://www.statista.com/chart/31062/us-homicide-rate/ https://www.statista.com/chart/31062/us-homicide-rate/ We're at one of the lowest historical rates since the early 1960s.
MarkusQ 3y ago
You're the one who brought up the "crack wars" narrative; the article doesn't mention crack at all. It does, however, state (contrary to your claim) that murders are _down_ (by 34%). If you are taking a narrower view of "still" and only counting the Covid era spike (generally agreed to be due to people being forced to spend more time in small, socially isolated groups) I would note that 1) this still has nothing to do with crack and 2) it would be an example of exactly the sort of cherry picking you claim to object to.
glitcher 3y ago
Personally I'm more interested in how things are trending more recently, so the high starting points of these graphs in the 90's aren't really what I care about. But even selecting graph midpoints to roughly estimate the last 15 years instead of 30, there are clear downward trends. To me the more important point is that the majority of people surveyed each year feel like crime increases every year, whether or not it actually does. It's a good example of the biases at play with public perception.

genman 3y ago

The problem with such data is always the reporting threshold. Crime level might be high but crime doesn't get reported.

verdverm 3y ago
There will always be unreported crimes. What matters more is changes to crime and reporting rates. Given all data sets show that crimes have dropped significantly - If the reporting rate for crimes has been steady or increased, then we can conclude crime has indeed decreased - Only if the reporting rate for crimes has decreased do we not know the effect. It would be dependent on the magnitudes of each They get into some of this data in the piece
- genman 3y ago
  Like I told - there is problem with threshold changes. If the thresholds are manipulated then it will lower also reported crime rates but the apparent crime rate based on personal experiences circulating in the population will paint a different picture. For example if somebody gets mugged but the value of the loss is below the threshold then it will not get reported but the crime still happened and the fact is shared in the population and this affects the perceived crime rate within the population.
AmVess 3y ago
The problem also: major cities have simply stopped reporting crime at all. Further, crimes go unreported because police have stopped responding to many of them. And then you have the other neat new thing of all races being listed as white.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > The problem also: major cities have simply stopped reporting crime at all. I promise you, no major city has ceased to report and respond to homicides, where we continue to statistically enjoy one of the safest couple of decades in American history.

d_burfoot 3y ago

> There were no major differences in violent crime victimization rates between male and female respondents or between those who identified as White, Black or Hispanic. This statement is profoundly misleading, calling into question the validity of the entire article. Black Americans are much more likely to be homicide victims than any other group. The fact that the general category of "violent crime victimization" appears to be equal for all 3 groups probably just means that there are huge differences in what gets reported. A street fight in an affluent white neighborhood probably means that the cops get involved, the same level of altercation in a majority black area probably does not involve police.

zaphar 3y ago
They come armed with statistical data. You come with a statement of fact that you don't support with any data. While I might be predisposed to believe you, you do not in fact offer any support for doing so.
tgv 3y ago
That came from self-reported survey data, a well-known source for manufacturing statistics.
cantSpellSober 3y ago
Can you share data to back that statement up please? I think what they were getting at is that crime is more closely linked to age and economic status than race > younger people and those with lower incomes were far more likely to report being the victim of a violent crime than older and higher-income people
- reissbaker 3y ago
  Not the OP, but this Wikipedia article seems like it does a decent job of covering the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...
  - 3y ago

photochemsyn 3y ago

[flagged]

Invictus0 3y ago

> In 2022, those who are male, younger people and those who are Black accounted for considerably larger shares of perceived offenders in violent incidents than their respective shares of the U.S. population. Men, for instance, accounted for 79% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, compared with 49% of the nation’s 12-and-older population that year. Black Americans accounted for 25% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, about twice their share of the 12-and-older population (12%). Extremely misleading paragraph. It implies that Black Americans are maligned for being criminals more than their true share of the population; but the arrest data shows that blacks are 27% of all those arrested, and more than 50% of those arrested for murder. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/table-43 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

ceejayoz 3y ago
And you think arrest rates are unaffected by racism? Traffic stops lose their racial disparity when the sun goes down (and cleverly, the control here was daylight savings time - the disparity jumps suddenly by an hour when DST goes into/out of effect) and cops can't see the occupants of cars as well. https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-racial-bias-traffic-stops/ https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-r...
- joey443 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    It isn't true, though. https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/06/racial_disparities_traffic_stops.php https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/06/racial_disparities_traffi... > Blacks were 63 percent more likely to be stopped even though, as a whole, they drive 16 percent less. Taking into account less time on the road, blacks were about 95 percent more likely to be stopped. Blacks were 115 percent more likely than whites to be searched in a traffic stop (5.05 percent for blacks, 2.35 percent for whites). Contraband was more likely to be found in searches of white drivers. > “So, black drivers were stopped disproportionately more than white drivers compared to the local population and were at least twice as likely to be searched, but they were slightly less likely to get a ticket,” Shoub says. “That correlates with the idea that black drivers were stopped on the pretext of having done something wrong, and when the officer doesn’t see in the car what he thought he might, he tells them to go on their way.” (Even if it were, the SEC still isn't allowed to warrantless raids on white people just because they statistically commit more white-collar crimes.)

EcommerceFlow 3y ago

The article provides an alright overview but omits a critical aspect: the correlation between race and crime rates is strikingly high. For example, FBI data shows vast differences in murder rates by race: African American: 33.6 homicides per 100,000 people American Indian and Alaska Native: 12.9 per 100,000 Hispanic: 6.9 per 100,000 White: 3.3 per 100,000 Asian and Pacific Islander: 1.7 per 100,000 There are other crimes in which the numbers are flipped, such as gambling and financial crimes. If we're serious about making things better and stopping violence, or whatever crime, we need to be upfront about who it's impacting the most and why.

underseacables 3y ago
I think a lot of crime Statistics are twisted and misreported to meet political agendas. One side doesn't want to give the other side any ammunition.
- fullshark 3y ago
  This is the case with literally everything and every large scale social argument, both sides selectively choose facts that align with their agenda. This is why newspapers which have editors (that selectively choose stories) and writers (that selectively choose what facts go into those stories and what "context" to provide) are propagandists and always will be. Now that we have techonlogists who are replacing both with algorithms that pattern will extend most likely, to the algorithm designers.
joey443 3y ago
[flagged]
- verdverm 3y ago
  Domestic policy may not "fix" it globally, but America could show leadership on improving the situation
- RajT88 3y ago
  [flagged]

claytongulick 3y ago

Data is only reported through 2022. Concern about rampant retail theft forcing major store closures has risen over the past two years. Also curious whether this includes crimes in areas that have a dollar limit on what will be prosecuted. Are those even reported? It's not an illusion that locks are appearing in retail in certain areas. That's a new thing. I don't believe those stores would be doing that if they had other choices.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> Concern about rampant retail theft forcing major store closures has risen over the past two years. That's what they told investors to explain losses, at least. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-may-have-overstated-theft-concerns.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/walgreens-may-have-overstate... "A top Walgreens executive on Thursday acknowledged the company may have overblown concerns about thefts in their stores after shrinkage stabilized over the last year... 'Maybe we cried too much last year,' Kehoe said. 'We’re stabilized,' he added, saying the company is 'quite happy with where we are.'" https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shoplifting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli... "The San Francisco Police Department’s data on shoplifting did not support Walgreen’s explanation for the store closings, according to an October 2021 analysis by The San Francisco Chronicle. The analysis said that while not all shoplifting incidents were reported to the police, one of the stores that closed had only seven reported shoplifting incidents in 2021 and a total of 23 since 2018."
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- claytongulick 3y ago
  Is your point that you don't believe that people's concern about rising crime is valid?
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Absolutely. Humans are horrible at assessing such things. Statistically we live in one of the most safe and stable societies in human history. Especially when significant amounts of propaganda - from police unions, bleeds-it-leads media, tough-on-crime politicians, companies trying to explain their quarterly loss as anything other than "our CEO fucked up" - are in play.

Glyptodon 3y ago

At least in my area homelessness is pretty tied to perception of crime, if not actual crime. And it's seemingly been going up a rather solid amount over the last five or ten years.

jmyeet 3y ago

Consider these three findings together: 1. Americans are more worried about crime; 2. Crime is down regardless of source; and 3. Concern about crime is national not local. This is manufactured consent in action. Politicians hype up crime panic. The media amplifies that message. Why you see a disparity between local and national crime is because people see crime isn't out of control in their local communities so they think the crime wave must be elsewhere.

somenameforme 3y ago
Perceptions of crime are sharply up both locally and nationally, but with local perceptions maintaining a higher value than local. This is perfectly expected because crime is extremely unevenly distributed.
rKarpinski 3y ago
> 2. Crime is down regardless of source; You left out "Since 1990's" ...

pdonis 3y ago

One factor that I think the article glosses over is the geographic distribution of crime. It briefly mentions some variations by state, but does not talk at all about variation by local area. It briefly mentions that the FBI says population density and economic conditions can affect crime rates, but gives no data.