I make a point of not becoming outraged at people simply because they disagree with me. Disagreement is not proof of racism. Generalities are just that, and have little relevance in meaningful dialogue.Quote:
Originally Posted by ericb327
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I make a point of not becoming outraged at people simply because they disagree with me. Disagreement is not proof of racism. Generalities are just that, and have little relevance in meaningful dialogue.Quote:
Originally Posted by ericb327
Of course if you just had a terrible car accident it's no comfort that accident rates have declined. But for everyone else, it is very significant because it is a description of reality, a reality every driver will face daily, in this case a safer one. It IS safer, much safer, in this country in terms of violent crime than it has been in 40 yrs. And the violent crime rate declines continually, in large time frames.Quote:
Originally Posted by gunthorp
You can't interpret general safer environments as non-existent because people still have car accidents or are the victims of violent crime. Are you interested in reality or hanging on to the same fear as when crime was much worse? You have an odd reaction to very good news. It's like you want danger.
The stats can also include sub-categories.Quote:
Originally Posted by tacman605
If you understand the purpose of stats they are helpful. They determine - for the group they describe - not the reality of what will happen, nothing can absolutely determine that, but an assessment of probabilities, that's all. From there, if negative outcomes are involved, a general probability of risk can be determined. Which is crucial to some fields. But you can make a statement based on them, that in the past, up until now, there has been a safer environment generally in terms of violent crime. From now on, looking forward to the future and understanding the present, the probable risk is lower than it was when violent crime was rampant, much lower. People can take appropriate action based on probability of risk. So, if you walked around all day in a bio-hazard suit to avoid bubonic plague, whose probable risk is is so low that we never think of it, you would likely be expending your energy on the inconsequential, and, if you react like the country will, in any given location, present you with a 50% chance of being killed in a crime, you will do the same.
By the way, you can determine general stats for a small area, like your neighborhood, by getting from the police figures of violent crime over a period of time.
Read a bit on determining probability and you will have it.
However, if you want to ignore all that and react as if you're in a war-zone daily, wellll.......it's a free country.
Yep I understand how stats work they can also be quite deceiving in their results if you are not careful.
I also understand that one person or act can screw your stats across the board. You are correct in relation to the laws of probability, as I stated if you take the stats for a particular area, with a certain ethnic population, it will probably show that victims and suspects are part of that ethnic population.
However, if you want to ignore all that and react as if you're in a war-zone daily, wellll.......it's a free country.
This confused me though but maybe it was meant as tongue in cheek humor since I am in a war-zone daily.
Citing crime statistics is fine, but it really sucks when you're one of the ones that gets counted so I'll keep carrying and staying out of bad parts of town.
Perfect! So true. That answers a big question for me: Why do some here, involved in awareness of violent crime and of self-defense from it, react to information that there is much less of it - as other sources agree - with such deflation of spirit and insistence that it makes no difference?Quote:
Originally Posted by Moops
And you're right, it's counter to some posters world-view: that constant high danger lurks behind every bush, inside of every car, walking the streets all the time. There is scum all around us waiting to pounce and kill. Suppose some neighborhoods are like that, but given the huge drop in violent crime, there can't be the number there was.
Anyway, you put your finger on it, at least for most naysayers to good news here and elsewhere.
That must be some comfort to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by NH_Esau
But that is not the reason for a 70% drop in violent crime, no one in any police agency in the country believes it is, no reputable analysis even mentions it, there are not more instances of violent attacks along with lowered homicide rates only, which would have to the findings for medtech being a main cause of the decline, there are fewer violent acts of all kind: 70%. Plus there is common individual experience, I KNOW New York has changed radically in terms of violent crime because I lived there for a long while a few years ago when NYC was - and may still be - the safest of the 10 largest cities in the country, as well as in both the 70s and early 80s when it was crime-ridden. It is obvious from daily experience, as well as from Newspaper reports of crime, from knowledge of actual victims, from seeing so many police compared to before: that it is much safer in all ways. Neighborhoods no sane person would even go into now see floods of people of good stature and background moving into them increasingly. No one considers them unsafe.
Sorry, you're attempt to deflect the positive of increased safety is a failure. Guess you'll have to live with the horrible good news.
Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain's Own Autobiography
Hurray, my city ranks #3.
From 1973-2010?Quote:
But that is not the reason for a 70% drop in violent crime, no one in any police agency in the country believes it is, no reputable analysis even mentions it, there are not more instances of violent attacks along with lowered homicide rates only, which would have to the findings for medtech being a main cause of the decline, there are fewer violent acts of all kind: 70%.
Too bad the actual numbers of aggravated assaults from 1973-2010 do not support that contention.
USA aggravated assaults:
1973: 420,650
2010: 778,901
Even from the agg assaults heyday of 1993, there hasn't been a 70% drop:
1993: 1,135,610
2010: 778,901
What may actually be accurate is to say that the level of aggravated assaults in 2010 is 70% of that which it was in 1993.
Then there's the theory that Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner posit in their book Freakonomics, that the drop in violent crime is due to the rise in abortions in the late 60's and early 70's. Many of those who would otherwise be more likely to commit violent crimes (those on the lower end of the economic spectrum), were instead aborted. ~20 years later, when they would have been committing those crimes, they weren't around.
Are the communities with highest crime rates actually availing themselves of abortions? I wonder what the research into that is....Quote:
Originally Posted by Moops
Probably not, but the point they made in the book was that in the 80's, violent crime was increasing rapidly, and everyone expected it to continue to do so. Then, without any solid explanation, it dropped rapidly nation-wide. Their theory is that the rise in abortions after Roe V. Wade took out a large swath of future violent offenders.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad Rogers
Needless to say, their theory is equally upopular among Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers.
If that's true, we should have evidence of it in a couple of decades as states continue to restrict access to abortions. There are so many potential factors that can come into play that it's hard to pinpoint just one reason. Don't be surprised to see a headline in ten years..."Rise in violent crime attributed to high fructose corn syrup consumption in adolescents".Quote:
Originally Posted by Moops
For heaven's sake, you are so committed to danger and dirge you don't allow awareness of what IS over the last TWO DECADES! There are data and experience and professional opinion, police, FBI, social analysts, common experience all over the place and have been for almost 20 years that violent crime is rapidly declining and always is anyway - yet you hold fast like a frightened child clutching a teddy-bear to denial of all this. Why do you NEED to believe it's constant high-danger and crumbling society you face? What do you and others here get out of that belief-system?Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad Rogers
"Aggravated Assault Figures
"The FBI estimates that in 2009, there were 806,843 aggravated assaults in the U.S. According to available data, the number of aggravated assaults declined 4.2 percent since 2008. Since the year 2000, the number of aggravated assaults declined 11.5 percent when compared to 2009 numbers. In this same period, the rate of aggravated assaults dropped 18.9 percent. The rate is the incidence of assaults for a representative number in the population."
(The figure for all violent crime in the article previously posted is for all violent crime: assaults, rapes, forcible entry, robbery murder, etc., etc and goes back considerably further to '93. This is just from 2000)