A few thoughts:
1) Alaska? Seriously? Look at the picture of Anchorage at night. Who could commit a crime in such a beautiful place? But then again, isn't it night for months at a time? People must need something to keep themselves busy.
2) Check out the picture from Springfield. Maybe if the cameraman called the police to report crime instead of snapping a picture of camouflaged men building bombs near the capitol crime would drop.
3) There's not a city in New York State in the top 10. In the words of my brother, a detective, "You're welcome New York."
It seems as if crime has been steadily leaving the big cities like NY, Chicago and L.A. and moving into the smaller cities and towns. Do you believe that crime has gone down in the larger cities because of an increased police presence on the streets? Also do you think may begin to rise again as a result of the recession the country is in right now?
ReplyDeleteThe statistics show that as community policing and quality of life crime arrests (property crimes) increase, violent crime usually decreases. These reports usually focus on violent crime. I would bet the list would look differently if they included all crimes. With every law enforcement agency seeing budget cuts and the number of unemployed increasing, crime has nowhere to go but up. Unfortunately, we have to wait a few years to see if it's correlated.
ReplyDeleteHmm. You know I was reading an article in NY Times a couple of weeks ago and it discussed how violent crimes in the US have been at their lowest in 40 years despite the ongoing recession. However violent crime rates in NYC have gone up in the past two years. Do you believe that the recent increases in violent crime are the result of the economic recession or just a spontaneous wave in crime that would dissipate as time goes by? Or should we focus on what we see in our real life experiences instead of focusing too much on the statistics?
ReplyDeleteStatistics has a place in crime prevention and focus. Statistics can show us what works and what doesn't. However, there are always unexplained anomalies with any statistic. it will be years before we can say why there is a recent increase in violent crime in NYC to see whether it is connected with the recession or some other reason. The best use I see of statistics is when police use the data to flood certain areas. An increased police presence usually brings crime down in those areas. There is the question of whether crime just moves to different areas, but those are for another day.
ReplyDelete