
Cyrus Vance Jr.’s ‘Moneyball’ Approach to Crime - kanamekun
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/magazine/cyrus-vance-jrs-moneyball-approach-to-crime.html
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thrownaway2424
One of the biggest dangers in Manhattan these days is running over and killing
people with cars. In 2013 333 people were murdered in New York, while 286
people were killed by car crashes. Vance steadfastly refuses to prosecute
motor vehicle violent crime. As long as this blind spot persists he cannot
claim to be taking a scientific or quantitative approach to reducing crime.

[http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/11/26/vance-serves-up-
excuse...](http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/11/26/vance-serves-up-excuses-for-
failure-to-prosecute-motorists-who-kill/)

~~~
ohsnap
The link you sent says Vance _does_ prosecute 'motor crime' (DUIs, fleeing the
scene,etc..) Also you forgot to add that it is inherently difficult to
prosecute because a jury doesn't see negligent drivers as criminals. You
already know about the clement case that Vance lost.

I intend to agree that car crashes is one of society's biggest and underrated
problems, but your really laying out a big strawman here

~~~
thrownaway2424
If you define killing people with cars to be out of scope then you're just
drawing the system boundaries incorrectly. Let me ask you this: if it's not a
crime to kill someone with a car, as long as you're sober and you don't flee
the scene, why does anyone murder someone else in New York with a knife or a
gun? Wouldn't running them down with a car be the rational choice? After all,
they aren't prosecuting the guy who ran over and killed a 3-year-old in a
crosswalk, even though there's a video recording of the act. You can be
captured on video running down and killing someone and not be prosecuted. Only
a fool would choose another weapon.

~~~
gamblor956
Because crime in the US is a matter of _intent._ If you intend to kill
someone, and then do, the exact means of killing are largely irrelevant; you
have committed _some sort_ of homicide crime. (The exact means of killing may
determine what particular homicide crime has been committed, such as
manslaughter vs murder.) That is why people above have been saying that most
accidents are not criminal--the driver does not _intend_ to hit the
cyclist/pedestrian/whatever. Negligence is generally not a crime in the US
except in exceptional circumstances (i.e., negligent homicide, in which the
driver's gross negligence while driving--such as texting while the car is
moving--results in accident in which someone else dies).

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mlinksva
There's a quote in the article from an assistant DA claiming it is a
'moneyball' approach but seems more like a hash of somewhat data-oriented
approaches.

It's been a long time since I've read the Moneyball book, and never saw the
movie, but it seems to me there are two levels of 'moneyball' approach:

1\. Use data to make allocate resources differently than gut instinct/received
wisdom (of baseball scouts). This level can be applied very widely. Maybe they
(Manhattan DA office) are doing this level to decide who to put resources into
prosecuting. But clearly they're not doing it comprehensively, given massive
prosecutions for marijuana.

2\. Do (1) to make a bet in a competitive environment that goes a different
way than most competitors. I don't see this level applying to what the DA is
doing at all, though I imagine it _could_ be done in the hiring of law
enforcement/prosecution, which seems to be competitive, at least at the
executive level. But there's probably a lack of data to make such bets. (I
haven't looked, but an idle question I have is whether there's data to support
shifting police work to a female-dominated profession; if there is maybe
that's a bet that could be made.)

I say this in part because I think there are non-sports fields in which both
levels could be very directly translated, eg
[http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2012/03/04/altmetrics-
moneyball...](http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2012/03/04/altmetrics-moneyball/)

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TrainedMonkey
I am starting to detest articles that do not provide any comparisons to the
numbers they throw out.

In 1974 and 2009 there were 648 and 59 murders in Manhattan respectively.

While in US total in 1974 and 2009 there were 20710[9366] and 15399[15350]
murders respectively. Number in square bracket is alternative number from data
in second table on cited page below.

Thus it looks that there is significant reduction of murders in Manhattan
specifically. Perhaps most striking statistics is that in 1974 murders in
Manhattan constituted over 3% of total murders in the country while having
only 0.7% of population. In contrast in 2009 murders in Manhattan constituted
0.4% of nation total while having 0.5% of population. I am using data only
form first table here.

I am sure that there are a host of other factors that are affecting this,
notably rise of property prices which have pushed out substantial portion of
lower income population out of Manhattan.

I used data from:
[http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm)
and
[https://www.google.com/search?q=manhattan+population](https://www.google.com/search?q=manhattan+population)

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hackuser
The government has designated ~9,000 people as the most dangerous criminals,
"virtually all of whom have criminal records", and uses that to guide how
these people are treated. Based on what I read, you are put on this list
without trial, without your knowledge, and without appeal.

What could go wrong? The Times devotes a little space to this question, far
down in the article, but doesn't seem to see the obvious, major flaws. How
many times will we repeat these mistakes before there is enough of a
widespread, general understanding of them?

Part of the problem is that it's not affecting the people with power in our
society. If there's a mistake, we probably won't know about it -- from our
perspective, nothing is perfect, but the victim could end up in jail and have
their life ruined. If this was a list of government-designated criminal
hackers, and it affected your ability to use IT and your job ...

EDIT: Many edits

~~~
adekok
I suspect that this list is really just a database sort over a weighted set of
criteria. That sort gets you the "most problematic" criminals by some
criteria.

After than we have the following:

* the person is in jail, in which case being on the list is largely irrelevant

* the person is out of jail, but not committing crimes, in which case being on the list is largely irrelevant. They will presumably fall off of the list as they fail to commit crimes

* the person is out of jail, but has just been apprehended for committing a crime.

For the last situation, the list is hugely important, because it helps you
deal with the crime in _context_.

~~~
hackuser
Do you have other sources of information besides the article? I don't remember
much in it that supports those claims.

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Marcus99
"Inspired by “broken windows” policing strategies advocated by William J.
Bratton, who at the time was head of the city’s transit cops and is now the
New York City police commissioner, D.A.s began to prosecute offenses once
considered small potatoes. The iconic example in New York was the campaign
against the “squeegee men” cleaning car windshields when drivers were trapped
in traffic."

What a timely article, on the same day that a grand jury returns a "no bill"
for a cop who choked a man to death for the crime of selling loose cigarettes.

Killing a few black and brown people (and ruining the lives of thousands more
by sending them to prison) for petty offenses is a small price to pay, as long
as Times Square is made safe for "Elmo impersonators and wide-eyed naïfs in
fanny packs".

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faster
The title made me think of Analytics Made Skeezy[1]. I am a little sad that
there's so little data, as others have already pointed out.

[1] [http://analyticsmadeskeezy.com/](http://analyticsmadeskeezy.com/)

