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naraburns  nihil supernum  7mo ago (text post)   12767 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #3

This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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Thanks for the detailed reply. Actually I did consider all that; that's what I was referring to when mentioning "cynical and mundane interpretations". No offense meant, but that's what they are.

I'll only nitpick on two issues. As far as I know, it's indeed true that 'in the last three years violent crime has surged upward in major cities', but this trend didn't start in 2020 (although it did escalate after that) but much earlier, before the Trump presidency, in fact, around 2012-15. And the same applies to the problems with the mentally ill homeless, I'm sure.

What makes you say it started pre-Trump?

I’m having some trouble with their tool, but the BJS data gives me the impression we still haven’t gotten back to 2012 levels.

The U.S. murder rate reached a low in 2014 and has increased by 75% since (as of 2021 - probably higher now).

Any other crime data is a joke. Do you think crime-ridden cities like San Francisco and Baltimore are accurately tallying anything that's not murder? And even if they did, crime reporting tools like the ones offered by the FBI have been gimped since Biden took over.

Given what we know about murder, and how people who commit murders tend to have also committed a litany of other violent crimes, the murder rate is best proxy for the overall crime rate we have. If anything, it undersells the problem as advances in medical care turn would-be murder victims into attempted murder victims.

The homicide rate in ‘shithole’ cities rose since 2014, but in NYC (America’s first city) declined to 2018/2019 before shooting up.

crime-ridden cities like San Francisco and Baltimore

SF's murder rate is about 1/9 that of Baltimore and lower than that of Dallas, Houston, Cincinnati and most other major cities other than NYC.

Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I was really frustrated by the BJS toolset, which I am sure contains that information. It’s also supposed to have the FBI’s murder data, but really didn’t want to display it to me.

As for the accuracy of non-murder crimes, I don’t know why we should expect a bias to change in any particular year. I could rationalize a dip, but it’d be post-hoc.

If you have X murder and Y petty thefts, an increase in X will likely reduce policing re petty thefts. So assuming resources are constant increased murders would likely lead to less reporting of petty thefts.

The murder rate has actually decreased since 2021.

I remember that Trump brought up the rising violent crime rate as an issue during the campaign, and liberals were denying it out of hand. Earlier, in 2014 and 2015, I've seen articles on the issue, and there were people debating whether it can be indeed explained by the Ferguson effect or not.

Sure, but was he right?

As far as i know, yes.

I'll only nitpick on two issues. As far as I know, it's indeed true that 'in the last three years violent crime has surged upward in major cities', but this trend didn't start in 2020 (although it did escalate after that) but much earlier, before the Trump presidency, in fact, around 2012-15.

At least where I’m from in New York, it really was 2020 when violent crime rose after a very long, mostly steady decline.

That may very well be true. I'm talking about the national rate of violent crime.

Do you have any hard numbers to back that claim?

No, because I don't have the habit of saving the URL of articles I read in a database in case someone asks me for the source on an online form 8 years later.

Murder rate reached a local minimum in 2014. Increased 75% since.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=US

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