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Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary caus

Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. (Those factors could have a causal relationship, but I doubt it's the primary cause based on reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature".) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010USp_12s1li011mcn_50t http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Having big budgets but less crime means these swollen budgets end up being wasted on a lot of "fun" things like military gear. (Did you know that Wisconsin has two anti-terrorism centers? One in Madison and one in Milwaukee.) I think this has something to do with politicians being unable to touch the budgets of first responders. Tangentially, due to stringent building codes, the number and severity of fires has been dropping dramatically over time. Yet spending on fire protection only goes one way: up. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010USp_12s1li011mcn_52t http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1950_2010... Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance and a cop. It makes me wonder if firemen and firewomen are so underutilized they've ended up with mostly make-work.

rayiner 13y ago
> Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. Two words: public unions.
- mpyne 13y ago
  I'm not opposed to unions in general, but there are definitely some specific ones our labor relations dept. could point out that would correlate very well with your point.
- wwhitman 13y ago
  Is it inconceivable that crime is lower due to more police on the streets and more criminals in jail?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I think that's true, but I also think it's true that it would be possible for police forces to demobilize a bit, instead of continuing their ramp-up. It's like invading Iraq. The police went in and broke the criminal gangs and organized crime. What's needed now is nation building, so to speak. The crime that's left is leaderless gangs of youths shooting each other up in turf wars, and SWAT teams aren't the answer to that.
    - D9u 13y ago
      Excellent point about nation building... Too bad we're doing that nation building away from home.
  - Tuna-Fish 13y ago
    Yes, because the same trend extends to places without massively expanded militarized police and ridiculous incarceration rates.
- calibraxis 13y ago
  This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behind their desks. We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. If any enemy nation did this, we wouldn't have any illusions. But we refuse to apply the same logic to ourselves, nor conclude as Chomsky did, "Remember, any state has a primary enemy: its own population." Otherwise, it might be obvious why police are fighting a war, and who their enemy is.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model for the U.S. Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit. It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise. A few more muslim youths rioting in Paris and I think you'd be surprised by what kind of police escalation Parisians will be willing to put up with...
    - jivatmanx 13y ago
      I'm sure they're protecting their turf, but they didn't start the drug war, and they're not at the forefront of promoting it. Nixon declared the "War on Drugs". He also pioneered the "Southern Strategy", and many elements of his campaign are now well accepted to have been used as code words. It wasn't a personal appeal to the puritan morality of drug users to stop, it was an appeal to the fears of scared whites. The "War on Drugs" almost exclusively effects poor, minority communities and individuals.
- mike_herrera 13y ago
  > Two words: public unions. Citation needed.
- coldtea 13y ago
  We have unions over here in Europe too. Even more respected actually. But they don't correlate with "police spending". Perhaps the word you're looking for is "lobbyists" and "demagogues".
  - Cthulhu_ 13y ago
    Indeed; the view I have of unions in Europe are worker organizations that protect and enforce the rights of employees, things like minimum wage, working conditions, fair treatment, and retaining of jobs; afaik, they don't do much to create jobs, let alone in an immoral way by paying lots of money to governments and organizations to, for example, increase the incarceration rate and duration.
mathattack 13y ago
"Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high." Isn't this cause and effect? Crime is lower because we are hiring more policemen. That is certainly one conclusion from Freakonomics. This is just a digression, because I do think the "Cops as Warriors" model is very scary, as "collateral damage" becomes acceptable in a war.
- tolmasky 13y ago
  But if spending AND crime were at an all time high wed be saying that its cause and affect in the other direction and probably be making the argument that we need even more spending! So no matter what high budgets are always justified.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    If you're not adjusting for inflation, spending on nearly everything is at an all-time high. (And when you're arguing that budgets are too high, it's rarely in your interest to adjust for inflation).
- nostromo 13y ago
  I attempted to address that in my comment. Check out, Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" which shows that violent crime is down globally, not just in the US. Also, Levitt did say increased policing decreased crime, but only caused around 5% of the decline ( http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUndersta... p. 184)
  - bayesianhorse 13y ago
    I found that talk riveting. I tried to tell that to people in real life, but stopped that after a couple of tries... Noone really believes that...
  - bstrand 13y ago
    Pinker's thesis is not without serious detractors. Edward Herman and David Peterson's critique[1] in ZNet is worth considering before taking it as fact. [1] http://www.zcommunications.org/steven-pinker-on-the-alleged-decline-of-violence-by-edward-s-herman-and-david-peterson http://www.zcommunications.org/steven-pinker-on-the-alleged-...
nrivadeneira 13y ago
I used to be a volunteer junior firefighter as a teen (many of Long Island's fire departments are volunteer based). Fire engines were sent out on emergency calls because many times the situation calls for tools and equipment that ambulances don't carry. I doubt it was budget-related, considering nobody was on payroll.
mililani 13y ago
I believe crime is at an all time low because everyone is in prison. http://dcj.state.co.us/ors/images/Stats%20Images/crime%20rates%201980-2011_incarceration%20rates-charter.GIF http://dcj.state.co.us/ors/images/Stats%20Images/crime%20rat...
- Tuna-Fish 13y ago
  Even greater reductions in crime rates are visible all across the Western Europe, and they have worked to reduce incarceration.
  - flexie 13y ago
    Interesting :-) Where can we read about that?
- yardie 13y ago
  I'm going to go with Freakonomics on this one and believe crime is low because fewer criminals are being born.
  - Cthulhu_ 13y ago
    Link? Or is this your way of expressing you believe criminal tendencies are a genetic trait?
    - yardie 13y ago
      > criminal tendencies are a genetic trait? What?! No, I believe criminal tendencies are produced from your environment. Kids in bad homes tend to grow into bad people. Link: http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-wh...
    - astine 13y ago
      http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/22/what-do-declining-abortion-rates-mean-for-crime-in-the-future/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/22/what-do-declining-abo... The original argument is in the book. The idea is that children from disadvantaged families are more likely to be aborted, while at the same time, children from disadvantaged families are also more likely to be crime prone. So, logically, abortion reduces crime with a twenty year delay. Personally, I like the lead theory[1] better, but it doesn't matter. It's not about eugenics or genes. 1 http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...
gohrt 13y ago
I'll take your extra firemen, thanks. Please don't conflate police looking for make-crime, with generous responses to emregency situations risking irreversible damage to life and property.
- dalke 13y ago
  Taking off on a tangent, the comment about firefighters and police reminded of Dennis Smith's 'Report from Engine Co. 82'. It described his life as a firefighter in New York City/South Bronx during the 1960s and early 1970s. What I recall most vividly from it was that locals would use the callbox to ring the fire department, in case of problem, because they didn't trust the police.
Arjuna 13y ago
"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance [...]" This is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). 1. Imagine a scenario where an ambulance arrives as a first responder, and the EMTs [1] find that they cannot gain access to the emergency scene, because the home or other structure is locked or otherwise blocked. In this case, a firetruck would need to be dispatched, because it deploys with the correct equipment (e.g., Halligan bar [2], Denver tool [3], etc.) and personnel trained to handle such a situation. Also, ambulances are typically deployed with only two personnel, and that may not be enough in situations where items need to be moved or cleared to gain clear access to the emergency scene. 2. Most firefighters are cross-trained as EMTs. If they are local to the emergency scene, then they may be the first responders, while an ambulance is en-route. 3. Incoming 911 calls can often be confusing, with callers under extreme stress, experiencing situations that they have never faced in their lives. Imagine a situation where a caller is so distraught, overwhelmed, or focused on a life-saving effort, that they cannot articulate that they need firefighting support, in addition to an ambulance. The bottom line: in an emergency situation, it is better to have more help on-hand than too little. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligan_bar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligan_bar [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_tool
- davidw 13y ago
  Good points. Interesting anecdotal data: here in Italy you have to call the fire department to get a fire truck out, whereas they're part of the standard package described above in the US. Fires aren't that common here because of construction materials, so while you see plenty of ambulances and police cars whizzing around, fire trucks are a far rarer sight than in the US.
  - nwombosi 13y ago
    I think the same goes for most of Western Europe. You rarely see fire trucks, but police cars and ambulances are common.
  - 13y ago
Fomite 13y ago
"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance and a cop. It makes me wonder if firemen and firewomen are so underutilized they've ended up with mostly make-work." One of the reasons for this is also that fire stations are often far closer to the scene of a call (fire suppression being something that benefits from being distributed vs. centralized hospitals) so the fire truck will often arrive there first, and can render aid until the ambulance arrives.
- bluedino 13y ago
  You also get a bill for $400 for the firetruck and $10 for each fireman
  - Graham24 13y ago
    do americans get a bill if they call for a fire engine?
    - bluedino 13y ago
      Depending on where you live, and what the incident is, yes. Since fire fighters usually serve paramedic roles, a fire truck will often be dispatched to a serious car accident. If you're lucky your car insurance will cover some or all of the bill. What you don't want is the $10,000 bill if they send a helicopter out.
      - snuxoll 13y ago
        > What you don't want is the $10,000 bill if they send a helicopter out. If you frequently find yourself in locations where a heli may be needed you may want to invest in a membership with your hospital or regional network (in the northwest US (ID, OR, WA) there is the life flight network, $60 a year covers any costs that your insurance don't pay).
a3n 13y ago
"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance and a cop. It makes me wonder if firemen and firewomen are so underutilized they've ended up with mostly make-work." In response to a similar observation that I once made, a friend suggested that police at a non-law enforcement emergency act as ad hoc project managers. "You need what, Mr. EMT? I'll have it for you directly, and I'll have those cars blocking access towed too. ... You lot! Back away!"
_pmf_ 13y ago
> Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. Devil's advocate: that shows they are effective and crime would be even lower with increased budgets.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

rayiner 13y ago

> Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. Two words: public unions.

mpyne 13y ago
I'm not opposed to unions in general, but there are definitely some specific ones our labor relations dept. could point out that would correlate very well with your point.
wwhitman 13y ago
Is it inconceivable that crime is lower due to more police on the streets and more criminals in jail?
- rayiner 13y ago
  I think that's true, but I also think it's true that it would be possible for police forces to demobilize a bit, instead of continuing their ramp-up. It's like invading Iraq. The police went in and broke the criminal gangs and organized crime. What's needed now is nation building, so to speak. The crime that's left is leaderless gangs of youths shooting each other up in turf wars, and SWAT teams aren't the answer to that.
  - D9u 13y ago
    Excellent point about nation building... Too bad we're doing that nation building away from home.
- Tuna-Fish 13y ago
  Yes, because the same trend extends to places without massively expanded militarized police and ridiculous incarceration rates.
calibraxis 13y ago
This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behind their desks. We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. If any enemy nation did this, we wouldn't have any illusions. But we refuse to apply the same logic to ourselves, nor conclude as Chomsky did, "Remember, any state has a primary enemy: its own population." Otherwise, it might be obvious why police are fighting a war, and who their enemy is.
- rayiner 13y ago
  > That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model for the U.S. Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit. It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise. A few more muslim youths rioting in Paris and I think you'd be surprised by what kind of police escalation Parisians will be willing to put up with...
  - jivatmanx 13y ago
    I'm sure they're protecting their turf, but they didn't start the drug war, and they're not at the forefront of promoting it. Nixon declared the "War on Drugs". He also pioneered the "Southern Strategy", and many elements of his campaign are now well accepted to have been used as code words. It wasn't a personal appeal to the puritan morality of drug users to stop, it was an appeal to the fears of scared whites. The "War on Drugs" almost exclusively effects poor, minority communities and individuals.
mike_herrera 13y ago
> Two words: public unions. Citation needed.
coldtea 13y ago
We have unions over here in Europe too. Even more respected actually. But they don't correlate with "police spending". Perhaps the word you're looking for is "lobbyists" and "demagogues".
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  Indeed; the view I have of unions in Europe are worker organizations that protect and enforce the rights of employees, things like minimum wage, working conditions, fair treatment, and retaining of jobs; afaik, they don't do much to create jobs, let alone in an immoral way by paying lots of money to governments and organizations to, for example, increase the incarceration rate and duration.

mathattack 13y ago

"Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high." Isn't this cause and effect? Crime is lower because we are hiring more policemen. That is certainly one conclusion from Freakonomics. This is just a digression, because I do think the "Cops as Warriors" model is very scary, as "collateral damage" becomes acceptable in a war.

tolmasky 13y ago
But if spending AND crime were at an all time high wed be saying that its cause and affect in the other direction and probably be making the argument that we need even more spending! So no matter what high budgets are always justified.
- superuser2 13y ago
  If you're not adjusting for inflation, spending on nearly everything is at an all-time high. (And when you're arguing that budgets are too high, it's rarely in your interest to adjust for inflation).
nostromo 13y ago
I attempted to address that in my comment. Check out, Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" which shows that violent crime is down globally, not just in the US. Also, Levitt did say increased policing decreased crime, but only caused around 5% of the decline ( http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUndersta... p. 184)
- bayesianhorse 13y ago
  I found that talk riveting. I tried to tell that to people in real life, but stopped that after a couple of tries... Noone really believes that...
- bstrand 13y ago
  Pinker's thesis is not without serious detractors. Edward Herman and David Peterson's critique[1] in ZNet is worth considering before taking it as fact. [1] http://www.zcommunications.org/steven-pinker-on-the-alleged-decline-of-violence-by-edward-s-herman-and-david-peterson http://www.zcommunications.org/steven-pinker-on-the-alleged-...

nrivadeneira 13y ago

I used to be a volunteer junior firefighter as a teen (many of Long Island's fire departments are volunteer based). Fire engines were sent out on emergency calls because many times the situation calls for tools and equipment that ambulances don't carry. I doubt it was budget-related, considering nobody was on payroll.

mililani 13y ago

I believe crime is at an all time low because everyone is in prison. http://dcj.state.co.us/ors/images/Stats%20Images/crime%20rates%201980-2011_incarceration%20rates-charter.GIF http://dcj.state.co.us/ors/images/Stats%20Images/crime%20rat...

Tuna-Fish 13y ago
Even greater reductions in crime rates are visible all across the Western Europe, and they have worked to reduce incarceration.
- flexie 13y ago
  Interesting :-) Where can we read about that?
yardie 13y ago
I'm going to go with Freakonomics on this one and believe crime is low because fewer criminals are being born.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  Link? Or is this your way of expressing you believe criminal tendencies are a genetic trait?
  - yardie 13y ago
    > criminal tendencies are a genetic trait? What?! No, I believe criminal tendencies are produced from your environment. Kids in bad homes tend to grow into bad people. Link: http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-wh...
  - astine 13y ago
    http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/22/what-do-declining-abortion-rates-mean-for-crime-in-the-future/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/22/what-do-declining-abo... The original argument is in the book. The idea is that children from disadvantaged families are more likely to be aborted, while at the same time, children from disadvantaged families are also more likely to be crime prone. So, logically, abortion reduces crime with a twenty year delay. Personally, I like the lead theory[1] better, but it doesn't matter. It's not about eugenics or genes. 1 http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...

gohrt 13y ago

I'll take your extra firemen, thanks. Please don't conflate police looking for make-crime, with generous responses to emregency situations risking irreversible damage to life and property.

dalke 13y ago
Taking off on a tangent, the comment about firefighters and police reminded of Dennis Smith's 'Report from Engine Co. 82'. It described his life as a firefighter in New York City/South Bronx during the 1960s and early 1970s. What I recall most vividly from it was that locals would use the callbox to ring the fire department, in case of problem, because they didn't trust the police.

Arjuna 13y ago

"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance [...]" This is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). 1. Imagine a scenario where an ambulance arrives as a first responder, and the EMTs [1] find that they cannot gain access to the emergency scene, because the home or other structure is locked or otherwise blocked. In this case, a firetruck would need to be dispatched, because it deploys with the correct equipment (e.g., Halligan bar [2], Denver tool [3], etc.) and personnel trained to handle such a situation. Also, ambulances are typically deployed with only two personnel, and that may not be enough in situations where items need to be moved or cleared to gain clear access to the emergency scene. 2. Most firefighters are cross-trained as EMTs. If they are local to the emergency scene, then they may be the first responders, while an ambulance is en-route. 3. Incoming 911 calls can often be confusing, with callers under extreme stress, experiencing situations that they have never faced in their lives. Imagine a situation where a caller is so distraught, overwhelmed, or focused on a life-saving effort, that they cannot articulate that they need firefighting support, in addition to an ambulance. The bottom line: in an emergency situation, it is better to have more help on-hand than too little. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligan_bar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligan_bar [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_tool

davidw 13y ago
Good points. Interesting anecdotal data: here in Italy you have to call the fire department to get a fire truck out, whereas they're part of the standard package described above in the US. Fires aren't that common here because of construction materials, so while you see plenty of ambulances and police cars whizzing around, fire trucks are a far rarer sight than in the US.
- nwombosi 13y ago
  I think the same goes for most of Western Europe. You rarely see fire trucks, but police cars and ambulances are common.
- 13y ago

Fomite 13y ago

"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance and a cop. It makes me wonder if firemen and firewomen are so underutilized they've ended up with mostly make-work." One of the reasons for this is also that fire stations are often far closer to the scene of a call (fire suppression being something that benefits from being distributed vs. centralized hospitals) so the fire truck will often arrive there first, and can render aid until the ambulance arrives.

bluedino 13y ago
You also get a bill for $400 for the firetruck and $10 for each fireman
- Graham24 13y ago
  do americans get a bill if they call for a fire engine?
  - bluedino 13y ago
    Depending on where you live, and what the incident is, yes. Since fire fighters usually serve paramedic roles, a fire truck will often be dispatched to a serious car accident. If you're lucky your car insurance will cover some or all of the bill. What you don't want is the $10,000 bill if they send a helicopter out.
    - snuxoll 13y ago
      > What you don't want is the $10,000 bill if they send a helicopter out. If you frequently find yourself in locations where a heli may be needed you may want to invest in a membership with your hospital or regional network (in the northwest US (ID, OR, WA) there is the life flight network, $60 a year covers any costs that your insurance don't pay).

a3n 13y ago

"Today in the US, if you call 911 about an emergency medical condition, they will often send a fire engine along with an ambulance and a cop. It makes me wonder if firemen and firewomen are so underutilized they've ended up with mostly make-work." In response to a similar observation that I once made, a friend suggested that police at a non-law enforcement emergency act as ad hoc project managers. "You need what, Mr. EMT? I'll have it for you directly, and I'll have those cars blocking access towed too. ... You lot! Back away!"

_pmf_ 13y ago

> Crime is at an all-time low yet spending on police is near an all-time high. Devil's advocate: that shows they are effective and crime would be even lower with increased budgets.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]