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Notes -
Whoops. I was trying to gesture at the conditional probability P(M|E). If P(M&E) was constant/dropped, but P(M|E) went up, then yeah, P(E) must have dropped.
I don’t know why it dropped. Maybe the walkability scores really worked, and following them is enough to dodge almost all crime. Seems unlikely. Maybe law enforcement drove most criminals into hives of scum and villainy, and now word of mouth is enough to keep tourists from visiting Skid Row. Maybe COVID killed all the criminals first. Any number of stupid reasons.
But people aren’t acting like P(E) has improved, are they?
I am tempted to argue that this is a media phenomenon. That if people weren’t getting pictures of immigrants piped to their phones 24/7, they wouldn’t feel like P(E) was so high. I’m aware that this flatters my own biases, so I’ll try to discount it, but surely something like this is possible.
As someone else mentioned, I think perception of crime rate is highly influenced by visibility of antisocial behavior. Murders and car thefts have fallen, but if going in public involves navigating multiple individuals screaming at invisible demons and flailing around, the drop in murders is probably not that comforting. The media undoubtedly plays a role since they're the ones telling me about the knife attacks (but non-fatal!) on public transportation in my nearby city, but I can see the homeless encampments and sketchy methheads with my own eyes.
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