On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:52:13 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
You stopped your "research" too soon, Randy:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...e.2ee1bc8.html
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"It isn't just a Dallas thing"...
The very last line in the oc.
If you note the context, Dr. Taylor's remark refers to other Texas cities,
not to comparisons of total crimes between Texas and other states. What he's
suggesting by that is anybody's guess.
And the man is full of nonsense to begin with. He says "Dallas is not near
as violent, near as dangerous as people think it is," Dr. Taylor said. "It's
a very safe major city." You only have to spend ten minutes with the UCR --
or better yet, look at about a decade's worth of UCR statistics -- to
realize he's in cloud-cuckooland. Dallas is consistently one of the most
crime-ridden cities in the US. For the past nine years it's ranked #1, and
it still ranks #1 AFTER correcting for the reporting method.
I had a great-aunt Pat who lived there. She was mugged on her way into
her high-rise apartment one night. The guy ripped off half her face as
he caved in her skull, before raping her and burglarizing her
apartment. And she was a beefy, old, oogly woman, may she RIP.
The gaps are huge. Compare the numbers we've been talking about here,
between NYC and Dallas for burglaries. No amount of mis-reporting is going
to change those qualitative relationships.
As far as I'm concerned, strings of ten burglaries, etc. should be
counted as ten crimes by all law enforcement officials. There are ten
victims, right? So this combined reporting is how our crime stats
have improved, is it?
If you spend time with the people responsible in various states for
reporting UCR figures to the FBI (I have, in person and in phone
interviews), you quickly see where the reporting inconsistencies lie.
They're systematic, measurable, and usually easy to correct. Since the Brady
Bill was enacted most states have really cleaned up their UCR reporting on
gun crimes. Once those were corrected the overall reporting accuracy
followed suit. But the relationships didn't change much even when you
retroactively adjust the numbers.
It looks like Taylor wants to make things look better for Dallas than they
are. That's pretty hard to do. Again, look at the numbers and see how big
those gaps are.
The FBI got into political trouble with its rankings a couple of decades
ago, so they toss in that disclaimer about comparing stats. The reason was
that it appeared to impugn the ability and effectiveness of many police
departments, which is a fair concern to have. As they say, there are a lot
of sociological factors that go into rates of crime. But that doesn't change
the fact that some places have vastly more crime than others. For example,
compare the murder rates of Louisiana with New York, or even with Texas.
Louisiana's murder rates are two to three times the rate in most other
states. That isn't because of the way they report. Dead people are easy to
count and hard to hide.
Take a look at this map. It's mind blowing. Select the larger size and
choose a crime, or for the whole enchilada, choose All Crimes. Instant
blackout!
http://maps.dallascityhall.com/index.asp?mo=CrimesOnMap
UCR numbers from non-metropolitan areas are much more variable. Don't make
the mistake of looking at the variables in rural areas and assume there are
the same variations in cities. It isn't so. Medium- and big-city police
departments are pretty consistent in the way they report.
Which is however the mayor/police chief/DA all want, right?
--
Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
-- Margaret Lee Runbeck