5 ms·

Here's another factor to consider: Sometimes crime is under reported or covered up or not acted on. I've known of property and other crimes that did not show u

Here's another factor to consider: Sometimes crime is under reported or covered up or not acted on. I've known of property and other crimes that did not show up in the statistics/annual reports of a particular city. The city in question was/is known for low crime and used that as a selling up point to attract businesses and home buyers. I'd be surprised if this was the only municipality that "fudged" their numbers.

pitt1980 13y ago
it seems that those trend are too dramatic to simply be a case of fudged numbers with no underlying change on the ground (not that numbers can't be fudged, just that if you were fudging numbers you wouldn't fudge them that much)
bluedino 13y ago
> Sometimes crime is under reported or covered up or not acted on. This could not be more true where I live, and with police departments shrinking nationwide, I would guess that it's true in other places as well. Plenty of people are still getting their back doors kicked down while at work, and come home to find their laptops and consoles, and television missing. You call the police, and they'll show up 4 hours later, and all they really do is put your name on a list. It's basically up to you to go around and search pawn shops and craigslist to find your stuff. Most people don't even bother to call the cops, and don't bother filing an insurance claim since an LCD TV is $450 and the insurance deductible is $1500, not to mention the rise in rates or risk of getting your coverage dropped. Reported crime is down. That's about it.
PeterisP 13y ago
1) For many categories measured in the original article (murders, armed robberies of stores) it's not likely that a major part is unreported; 2) For simple thefts, of course, a large portion is not reported because people don't bother - but are you really arguing that in suddenly all the (very different) countries people started reporting crimes much less than 20 years ago; or that municipalities in 2000'ies are fudging numbers much more massively than they could in 1980's?

pitt1980 13y ago

it seems that those trend are too dramatic to simply be a case of fudged numbers with no underlying change on the ground (not that numbers can't be fudged, just that if you were fudging numbers you wouldn't fudge them that much)

bluedino 13y ago

> Sometimes crime is under reported or covered up or not acted on. This could not be more true where I live, and with police departments shrinking nationwide, I would guess that it's true in other places as well. Plenty of people are still getting their back doors kicked down while at work, and come home to find their laptops and consoles, and television missing. You call the police, and they'll show up 4 hours later, and all they really do is put your name on a list. It's basically up to you to go around and search pawn shops and craigslist to find your stuff. Most people don't even bother to call the cops, and don't bother filing an insurance claim since an LCD TV is $450 and the insurance deductible is $1500, not to mention the rise in rates or risk of getting your coverage dropped. Reported crime is down. That's about it.

PeterisP 13y ago

1) For many categories measured in the original article (murders, armed robberies of stores) it's not likely that a major part is unreported; 2) For simple thefts, of course, a large portion is not reported because people don't bother - but are you really arguing that in suddenly all the (very different) countries people started reporting crimes much less than 20 years ago; or that municipalities in 2000'ies are fudging numbers much more massively than they could in 1980's?