5thhorseman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2024 8:39 am
Violent crime is at or near a 50-year low.
IS it?
FBI changed its reporting structure in 2021, and it lead to decreased information added to the system.
https://virginiamercury.com/2023/10/31/ ... gh%20NIBRS. In some years, Chicago, LA, and New York didn't report.
And then there's the issue of down reporting. Aggravated assault becomes simple assault. Or underreporting. Have a theft? Don't call us if its under $1,000 (I know that's not violent crime).
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbis-d ... ies-report.
Then, I've heard FBI's reports of what local agencies reported to them don't line up. (The previous cited article hints at this indirectly when independent analysis of crime stats using local data doesn't align with FBI's treatment of that data in the uniform crime reporting statistics -- which are uniform insofar as FBI has fixed categories, but not necessarily uniform in translating crimes into those categories).
And there's the according to Gallup polling, Americans perceive crime to be a bigger problem than any time since the late 80's/early 90's (
https://news.gallup.com/poll/544442/ame ... rious.aspx;
https://news.gallup.com/poll/544415/per ... -high.aspx) -- the fear that sparked Clinton's crime bill to get at Biden's "super predators."
Now, I haven't personally tackled the data issue to a sufficient degree where I'd be confident about saying these these data critiques are all valid and that crime is worse than being reported. But there were many valid critiques about the uniform crime reporting system from the time that I was up to speed on public safety/crime reporting (late 2000s, early 2010s), and also a significant understanding about gaps in local crime data (and its strengths and weaknesses). At the very least, understand the FBI may be comparing what looks like apples to apples over time, but they are actually keeping stats that first convert oranges to apples, grapes to apples, raspberries to apples, etc., and localities may shift what fruit they are starting with. (And never underestimate the fact local stats are created and reported by agencies with an interest and there is some discretion in categorization (the conversion) -- sometime that interest is to aggravate (funding!) sometime it is to mitigate (look how safe our policies are keeping you!). Presumably the changes to the reporting system in 2021 were designed to improve the information -- it could be that this "drop" in violent crime is due to a previous overcounting of the same categories -- or it could be this new system is missing things (like when Chicago doesn't report....). I'm not sure so I don't know yet what to make of it.
But its harder for me to ignore the perception issue. To be sure, a fair critique of perception survey data is that it is influenced by what information people see. And yet, for my whole lifetime, local crime is the currency of local news. If it bleeds it leads. We (in the US) have been barraged with crime reporting for decades and decades. Its hard to say these anecdotal inputs affecting our perception are materially different in the past half century. I mean the way that we get our media has certainly changed, but if anything, the former centralized disseminators of news (national tv., local news, local newspapers) were always in a panic about crime; and decentralization (but echo chambering) is probably more likely to lead to a lack of unease. (It would be interesting to see perception of crime with cross-tabs against where that person gets their media, I'm sure that exists somewhere, but I don't have it.)
Ultimately, though, the talking point that "crime is at a 50 year low"--the first article criticizes Ron DeSantis for making the claim--resounds like "we've never had a better economy." One can never discount that perception of realities can lie -- but Occam's Razor suggests that the simpler explanation is that politicians and their statistics do. If you want to not get reelected, tell people the economy is great, we've "beaten" inflation, and we've never been safer....
