
Perceptions haven't caught up to decline in crime - jwmerrill
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/upshot/perceptions-havent-caught-up-to-decline-in-crime.html?rref=upshot&abt=0002&abg=0
======
teuobk
Still lacking is consensus on _why_ violent crime has declined. Depending on
who you ask, reasons cited include:

\- Mass incarceration (usually credited with about 25% of the crime decline)

\- More gun control (e.g., the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban)

\- Less gun control (e.g., the rise of "shall-issue" concealed carry permits)

\- Cultural change

\- Banning of lead in automotive fuel [Nevin 1999]

Perhaps all of these mattered; perhaps none did. We don't really know.

~~~
omegaham
1\. Crime pays less than it used to. Back in the good old days, people carried
more cash on them. Pickpocketing and mugging was reasonably profitable when
everyone had money. These days, everyone has credit cards. I frequently carry
less than forty dollars; I've gone weeks where I have zero cash in my wallet.

2\. It's harder to avoid the fuzz. Police techniques have gotten dramatically
better. Everything from witness protection programs (Now you can testify
against the mob boss without worrying about feeding the fish) to analysis of
crime patterns means that police are collecting more evidence than ever
before.

3\. Entire avenues of crime have disappeared due to 1 and 2. For example, auto
theft has declined dramatically due to the institution of chipped keys, GPS
tracking, and the easy apprehension of chop shops.

4\. While violent crime has declined in profitability, white-collar crime has
become much more lucrative. There's big money in identity theft, for example.
This means that the ambitious criminals who would have previously been robbing
banks and mugging people are now doing their crime online and over the phone.

I don't think that these things are exclusively responsible; I'd just like to
add them to the nice list that you have going.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> 4\. While violent crime has declined in profitability, white-collar crime
> has become much more lucrative. There's big money in identity theft, for
> example. This means that the ambitious criminals who would have previously
> been robbing banks and mugging people are now doing their crime online and
> over the phone.

Just want to add to this credit card theft (i.e. Target and Home Depot). The
rewards are so much higher, and you never have to face someone in person to
steal from them.

~~~
adventured
And you can do it from almost anywhere in the world, including countries that
would be very hard to extradite you out of.

Pre-modern Web it would have been far more difficult - nearly impossible - for
someone from eastern Europe to steal money from me in any manner.

~~~
smcl
This is the sort of casual prejudice about eastern europe that I despise. Sure
you can probably say something like "well I just picked Eastern Europe at
random" but I think we all know that's not the case, and that's a little sad.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Prejudice is not the same as fact and statistics:

[http://eprints.qut.edu.au/73391/1/73391.pdf](http://eprints.qut.edu.au/73391/1/73391.pdf)

"Phishing and related cybercrime is responsible for billions of dollars in
losses annually. Gartner reported more than 5 million U.S. consumers lost
money to phishing attacks in the 12 months ending in September 2008 (Gartner
2009). This paper asks whether the majority of organised phishing and related
cybercrime originates in Eastern Europe rather than elsewhere such as China or
the USA. The Russian “Mafiya” in particular has been popularised by the media
and entertainment industries to the point where it can be hard to separate
fact from fiction but we have endeavoured to look critically at the
information available on this area to produce a survey. We take a particular
focus on cybercrime from an Australian perspective, as Australia was one of
the first places where Phishing attacks against Internet banks were seen. It
is suspected these attacks came from Ukrainian spammers. The survey is built
from case studies both where individuals from Eastern Europe have been charged
with related crimes or unsolved cases where there is some nexus to Eastern
Europe. It also uses some earlier work done looking at those early Phishing
attacks, archival analysis of Phishing attacks in July 2006 and new work
looking at correlation between the Corruption Perception Index, Internet
penetration and tertiary education in Russia and the Ukraine. The value of
this work is to inform and educate those charged with responding to cybercrime
where a large part of the problem originates and try to understand why. "

------
xexers
The same thing is happening with world poverty. Most people think poverty is
getting worse, but the opposite is true

[http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_ignorant_about_the_world)

~~~
ekianjo
That's what happens when people keep talking about "growing inequalities"
instead of focusing on the fact that everyone is actually getting richer with
time (and obviously people who already have a lot of capital grow richer
faster). There's no zero-sum game at work.

~~~
eru
> (and obviously people who already have a lot of capital grow richer faster)

That's not so obvious, and not trivially true.

~~~
ekianjo
> That's not so obvious, and not trivially true.

Well if you have 1 million dollar and you don't grow your capital faster than
someone who has 100 dollars in the bank, you are doing something deeply wrong
with your investments. When you have lots of capital you have access to
investment opportunities which simply do not exist below a certain level, too.
So I'm not sure where the "not trivially true" is coming from.

~~~
eru
First, we have to decide whether we are going to measure absolute differences
or proportions.

If we go for proportions, which makes sense since utility of money is roughly
logarithmic, it is not at all clear that you can grow 1 million dollar faster
than 100 dollar.

If we go for absolute differences, than most of the time the millionair will
be ahead. But in the recent financial crisis lots of rich people lost lots of
wealth (at least on paper), while poor people can only lose so much in an
absolute sense.

~~~
ekianjo
Agree if we talk on proportions - while, as I mentioned, the millionaire has
access to investment options unavailable to "normal" people and therefore
should still be able to grow faster even in proportion.

But most of the time when the media talk about inequalities, they talk about
them in absolute values.

~~~
eru
> the millionaire has access to investment options unavailable to "normal"
> people and therefore should still be able to grow faster even in proportion.

But the millionaire also needs bigger opportunities. It's much harder for
Warren Buffett to find billion dollar opportunities now, than it used to be
for him to find million dollar opportunities.

------
clarkmoody
_> It’s an unfortunate fact that media reporting on individual crimes yields a
relentlessly dismal drumbeat of downbeat news. But even as each reported crime
yields a story that is terrifying enough to shape our perceptions, the truth
is that none of them tells us much about the broader trends. Far better to
ignore the anecdotes and focus instead on the big picture, and the hard data
tells us: There’s been a remarkable decline in crime._

But then the media isn't really about giving us perspective, is it?

~~~
spingsprong
No, it really isn't. It's about getting viewers, selling newspapers, and
getting clicks. And the best way to achieve that is by using strong emotion,
usually negative. Fear, hatred, disgust, anger.

I'm not sure how a democracy is supposed to work, when the people voting are
being given bad information on such a massive scale.

There are so many important areas when what people believe and what is true
are miles apart.

~~~
arethuza
"The best way to achieve that is by using strong emotion, usually negative.
Fear, hatred, disgust, anger."

Take those topics and add a heavy dose of celebrity trivia and you've
described the UK Daily Mail perfectly.

------
georgemcbay
Not only haven't they "caught up" but the 24-hour news cycle seems to have
made many people (perhaps most people) in the US believe that the crime rates
have gone up significantly.

I've quit trying to correct people about this (because it is apparently
fruitless) on places like Facebook where friends and family will make off-
handed claims about how bad the crime is these days compared to "the good old
days" (where the "good old days" is circa the late 70s to the early 90s
relative to these people's ages).

All of your fancy data is no match for people's emotional response
perceptions.

~~~
baddox
I'd like to see it compared with news viewership/readership from various
sources. Do people who watch TV news overestimate crime more than those who
read news online? How does education about current events affect the
estimates?

Though I have no data, I'm skeptical that the 24-hour news cycle is the
primary factor. I would guess that people _always_ tend to overestimate the
crime rate, as a far fundamental bias, similar to how then-modern technology
is _always_ ruining society [0], or "kids these days" are _always_ the worst
generation ever to grace the planet. The article doesn't say whether people
have gotten _less accurate_ over time with their crime rate estimates.

[0] [http://xkcd.com/1227/](http://xkcd.com/1227/)

------
suprgeek
The victims Violent Crime may have decreased but the victims of non-violent
(white-collar) crimes may have actually increased.

How many people were "victimized" in the recent Financial crisis? How about
the spate of people in asset forfeiture by the police just for being in the
wrong place? How many victims of recent Credit card breaches?

These stats might accurately reflect that the US is moving from an industrial
to a post-industrial information & services economy - the criminals are
correspondingly adapting to where the real money is.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> The victims Violent Crime may have decreased but the victims of non-violent
> (white-collar) crimes may have actually increased.

This is an extremely important point. The way you fight white collar crime is
comprehensively different than the way you fight violent crime. BearCats and
SWAT teams are utterly useless.

Traditional law enforcement in general just doesn't work. You can't deter
systemic risk with post facto sentencing. If the criminals live in a non-
extradition country then obtaining evidence against them is pointless.

What is necessary is to help victims to not be victims rather than trying to
apprehend the perpetrators after the fact. The problem is we put the FBI and
DoJ in charge of it rather than the National Science Foundation.

We would do well to take half the DoJ's budget and put it into grants for
computer security research, free security audits for popular software and
libraries and UX improvements for the likes of PGP.

------
ww520
The rise of video games. More teenagers are playing video games and venting
out their anger in the games or online instead of hanging out in the streets
shooting each other.

~~~
jiggy2011
I wonder if the people who send offensive messages to others in online games
are the same who would in previous generations would have sprayed offensive
graffiti on walls?

~~~
mikeash
Or perhaps literally stab someone in the face after losing a game rather than
impotently threatening to do so online.

------
mrjayharris
I believe there is a similar thing happening with people's beliefs about
aviation safety. I think people understand it's generally safe, but I don't
think most people realize how incredibly safe major US airlines are. The media
plays a similar role there too, the difference being that some years there
aren't even _any_ crashes to report on, so they report when something goes
wrong but everyone comes out safely anyway as if that's something to be scared
of when really that highlights how good emergency procedures are.

------
collyw
OK, this probably doesn't apply to violent crime, but petty crime like
pickpocketing, etc. There is basically no point in reporting it. The police
will do nothing. I live in Barcelona, and there is a lot of this stuff goes on
(I had my wallet stolen once, _lots_ of tourists get robbed). I went to the
police when my friends camera was stolen. Did anything happen after? No. Yet I
have been stopped 5 times for my cycling behavior (going through red lights on
a quite road usually).

~~~
jsmcgd
Are you suggesting there is an increasing trend in pick pocketing and that's
why the police no longer act on it and/or vice versa?

~~~
collyw
Neither. I think the general perception (certainly amongst the younger people)
is that the police are a corrupt waste of time. They are very enthusiastic
with protestors in a violent way, but do nothing about things getting stolen.

------
vaadu
The people that make money from the law enforcement and private prison
industries don't want people to be aware of these numbers. It makes it too
difficult to sell new LEO toys and prison beds.

Legalizing mj nationwide will probably help the numbers go even lower. LEOs
should be focusing more on the nastier drugs like meth, gangs and white collar
crime against the elderly and others that are vulnerable.

------
hackuser
How much is due to changes in or the unreliability of the statistics? The
article (and many others) say perceptions haven't caught up with reality, but
really they mean that perception hasn't caught up with statistics -- perhaps
the statistics don't reflect reality. I don't know one way or the other, but I
haven't seen these questions addressed:

1) I don't know much about how the data is produced, but certainly if law
enforcement practitioners, down to the sergeants, are under pressure to
produce better and better statistics (which many reports say is true), they
are incentivized to reduce those stats and not crime.

I've read news stories of police not reporting or fudging crime stats (e.g.,
reporting a serious crime as a moderate one, not reporting lower-level crimes,
etc.). And under that pressure, they may use strategies that produce more
numerical improvement than public safety.

2) How could the FBI accurately measure nation-wide crime, every mugging in
every small town? Do others measure it?

3) Some of the numbers are extraordinary; doesn't that raise red flags for
you?: (both quotes are from the article)

* "the F.B.I.'s count of violent crimes reported to law enforcement has declined from a rate of 747 violent incidents per 100,000 people in 1993 to 387 ... over this period, the homicide rate has fallen by 51 percent; forcible rapes have declined by 35 percent; robberies have decreased by 56 percent; and the rate of aggravated assault has been cut by 45 percent. Property crime rates are also sharply down."

* "The National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the rate of violent victimizations has declined by 67 percent since 1993. This reflects a 70 percent decline in rape and sexual assault; a 66 percent decline in robbery; a 77 percent decline in aggravated assault; and a 64 percent decline in simple assault."

~~~
greatzebu
This is a very reasonable question. One way to get at the question of whether
the reduction is real is to look at crimes where it's hard to game the
statistics and see if they follow the same trends as other crimes.

One of the best crimes to look at is murder, since it's much harder to
reclassify or not report a crime when there's a dead body involved. Looking at
the statistics for murder and non-negligent manslaughter from
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States)
seems to support the idea that the reduction is real--the rate has been cut in
half since 1990, and the reduction is broadly similar to the reductions in
other types of crime over that period as described by that article.

~~~
spindritf
_One of the best crimes to look at is murder_

This is true. But when you really need to do something about those stats, even
murders can turn out not to be murders.

[http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-
Magazine/May-2014/Chicago-...](http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-
Magazine/May-2014/Chicago-crime-rates/)

------
fiatmoney
Sure, if you compare to the tail end of the crack wars. Compare to 1950 or
1900 or 1980 or... What does this prove exactly?

The perception of "safety" is also not only a function of "crimes per capita".
"Blocks safe for a woman to walk through alone at night" or "total
victimization rate" make just about as much sense. "Obviousness of safe /
unsafe areas" is also a good one - if you have to have local knowledge of what
is a "good neighbourhood" or not in order to avoid being victimized, obviously
non-locals will develop a perception of the area as unsafe.

Wow, from the downvotes people seem really invested in particular choices of
time horizon & measures of safety. Who knew?

~~~
seanflyon
Your safety is a measure of how likely you are to be attacked, which is
fundamentally a per capita measurement. If there are twice as many people and
10% more attacks, that means that the average person is less likely to be
attacked.

~~~
fiatmoney
No. Crimes per capita can obviously be concentrated in a smaller segment of
the population (for instance, those that live in high crime areas). Half the
population twice as frequently, or vice versa, looks the same in aggregate but
not in perception.

And geographic concerns do matter. "I must live in this expensive area to
avoid being mugged" drives a perception of unsafety even if you are not being
mugged.

------
ryangittins
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivation_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivation_theory)

~~~
Terr_
I guess it depends to what extent you think TV drives culture versus reflects
it.

It is kind of amusing to look at certain old movies and see how much less-
believable they've become, particularly the ones that implied urban crime was
going to get _much_ worse before getting better (if ever.)

Ex: Robocop, Judge Dredd, Escape from New York, the introductory portion of
Demolition Man...

------
lexcorvus
Although I rarely see it considered, one factor that may contribute to a
decline in crime rates is _flight_. When people flee crime-ridden areas, crime
rates _should_ go down, but mainly as a side-effect of a worrisome trend.
Might this be part of the explanation for the drop in crime? It seems
plausible, but I've never seen a careful evaluation of the hypothesis.

~~~
Crito
Without bothering to actually look at the numbers, I suspect you are wrong.
Flight was a big thing in the 50's through 80's (although it has continued in
a few notable locations (Detroit, etc)). The 90s and 00's are best
characterized as a _reversal_ of flight though. Cities like NYC were
rejuvenated, young successful people are once again moving _into_ major
cities.

------
dusklight
One thing to consider is that there are certain parts of NY that can be
considered very safe, whereas other parts are not. The same thing probably
happens in Dallas and Houston, the difference being the Texas cities are
driving cities so you would just drive through/around the dangerous parts,
whereas in NY you would have to walk through them.

------
ianbicking
Even though I wish it were true, I'm not sure the decline in crime really
indicates greater safety. For instance, one major contribution to the decrease
in the murder rate is that people survive gunshot wounds much better than they
used to. In terms of the human cost of violence that's actually great, but
it's not exactly safety. And of course people have become much more safety
conscious now, we drive safer cars, we walk around less, we don't let our kids
out unattended, etc. All those things actually do avoid crime, and so reduce
the amount of crime, but they don't increase safety.

Which is to say: our tolerance for risk has gone down, and behavior has
changed because of that, but that doesn't (and rationally shouldn't!) affect
our concern about crime. And perceptions are really about the concern about
crime (something that actually affects the person being surveyed), not the
belief in what crime exists (which only abstractly affects someone) – and it
is not irrational that the concern remains steady or goes up even as actual
crime rates go down. It may not be good or healthy that the concern remains
steady, but it's not irrational.

~~~
mikeyouse
This isn't remotely true.

The total violent crime rate has decreased by ~50% in the last 20 years. The
rate of "Nonfatal Firearm Victimizations" has fallen by ~75% from it's 1990's
peak:

Overall: [http://i.imgur.com/EpZQTo5.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/EpZQTo5.jpg)

By Race: [http://i.imgur.com/h7rQVf2.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/h7rQVf2.jpg)

(From this PDF:
[http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf))

~~~
ianbicking
The result I've heard about may just be localized, for example in New Orleans:
[http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/07/new_orleans_m...](http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/07/new_orleans_murder_rate_drop_i.html)
(there are several similar stories for other crime-prone metropolitan areas).

Simpson's Paradox can also mess with these statistics:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox)
– like, is crime decreasing because we are suburbanizing? And therefore, if we
hold the community type constant, is crime decreasing? And so if you ask
someone "is crime decreasing in your area of perception?" then someone can
reasonably answer "no".

(There's also the possibility of a fallacy where everyone ratchets up their
expectation – e.g., a person who moves to the city from the suburbs says crime
increases because it probably has for them, but a person who moves to the
suburbs from the city starts looking to media to make observations about their
former neighborhood.)

~~~
mikeyouse
The math doesn't add up, and that's not data being presented from the article
about New Orleans, it's an opinion piece.

In 2009, there were 424 non-fatal shooting victims and 174 homicides in New
Orleans. In 2013, there were 321 non-fatal shootings and 155 homicides.[1]

The population of New Orleans was 354,850 in 2009 and was 378,715 in 2013.[2]

So the total murder rate went from 49/100k to 41/100k (17% decrease) while the
total non-fatal victimization rate went from 120/100k to 85/100k (30%
decrease). To see whether or not better care made an impact, we can just
multiply the number of injured by the difference in survival rates after the
advanced trauma methods were introduced (14% vs. 19%). The number of non-fatal
shootings would have decreased by 16, and the number of murders would have
increased by the same amount. So the new rates would be 45/100k and 81/100k,
still 8% and 33% improvements in the past 5 years.

Simpson's Paradox doesn't cut it either; young vs. old, rural vs. urban, big
city vs. little city vs. small town, black vs. white vs. hispanic, West vs.
Midwest vs. South --- All rates are down across the board.[3]

[1] -
[http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/01/2013_new_orleans...](http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/01/2013_new_orleans_murder_rate_d.html)

[2] -
[http://www.census.gov/popest/data/counties/totals/2013/index...](http://www.census.gov/popest/data/counties/totals/2013/index.html)

[3] -
[http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf)

~~~
ianbicking
I'm not deeply wedded to this particular point about trauma care, I think
increased risk adversity and security measures are more important to the
perception of crime (and give a rational basis to a perception of the threat
of crime). But this article is at least a bit more direct, and refers to the
things I've read in the past (and some of those articles I admit probably
contained false assertions):
[http://www.separatinghyperplanes.com/2013/07/can-medical-
adv...](http://www.separatinghyperplanes.com/2013/07/can-medical-advances-
explain-falling.html)

Per that article, the data supporting better trauma care is not particularly
impressive, but it does seem like there is a discrepancy between the criminal
reporting of assault with a firearm, and the medical reporting of injury from
a firearm

------
wmeredith
That's because there's no money in reporting good news. You want a killer
startup idea? Find a way to make money by telling people good news.

~~~
vacri
Some people already have: google 'good news church'.

------
jmspring
The wonderful thing about broad statistics, a decline in one area can mask
increases in others. Here in Santa Cruz (city, not sure about county) lots of
crime categories are up across the board. It is pretty darn noticeable.

~~~
mikeleeorg
I don't know how accurate this data is, but I looked around and it seems to
match the numbers that other sites listed:

[http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Santa-Cruz-
California.h...](http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Santa-Cruz-
California.html)

It doesn't show any major trends upwards (or downwards) in the crime rate for
Santa Cruz. Are there other sources of data on which you are referring?

I ask because it looks like you are being downvoted (I didn't downvote you),
perhaps because your comment didn't come across like one with data behind it.

~~~
jmspring
The site shows particular numbers, but having lived here 24+ years, the
statistics don't reflect reality. The problem is, "petty theft" doesn't get
written up, in most cases if it is under $1000 in loss, the police will not
take a report. Bike theft? Well, good luck with that - if Paul Graham was to
witness you jacking a $5k bike off of my car and he called the cops and the
bike wasn't registered, the cops will not do anything. Thief tools on you and
you are "checked out" by the cops, unless there is an outstanding warrant, you
are let go.

There is a big local issue with actually "punishing" any petty crime. I saw
the stats, but the reality is way out of whack with them mainly due to
cops/courts/DAs not really enforcing things.

Crimes related to drug use -- heroin, meth, bath salts -- generally don't even
get into the system. Take them to jail, they are out in a couple of hours max.

If you want specifics, I am happy to provide.

