This drives me crazy!

[C-pher]

Ok, so I'm watching the news this morning. They are talking about how the national Murder Rate for the US has gone up 5%.

What I would like to know is how much has the population rised?

They say that some of these cities like Memphis, Chicago, Nashville and a few others rised upwards of 42%. How many new people moved into these cities over the past year or two?

I mean, not that I'm looking for an excuse because violent crime is OK. But just that look at how many new people are there. Then see if that rate is really as high as they think?

Or is this thinking correct? I'll be the first to say that my math skills aren't the greatest. But it just seems like looking at several issues over just one would be a way to see if it's a valid statement.

 

[JonJ]

According to a Boston professor (SURPRISE!) it's the NRA's fault.
This is the guy everyone used to pick on in school. Do a Google on him, wow.
This particular quote never made it into the AP article.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/12/D8I6MG9G1.html
"We see that budgets for policing are being slashed and the federal government has gotten out of that business," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "Funding for prevention at the federal level and many localities are down and the (National Rifle Association) has renewed strength."

 

[Weerd Beard]

It's the NRA's fault (more spesifically the GUNs themselves....guns actully cause crime, people are just the gun's pawn!)
if crime goes "up" (per-capita statistics be damned)

if it goes DOWN it's Clinton's fault.

Arrrr

-Weer'd Beard

 

[SiameseRat]

You can't trust percentage jumps. I was just reading something yesterday about Hartford CT. If you look at the % it would be a huge increase, but the murders went from something like 16 last year to 25 this year. Which is really still low considering Hartford is a fairly big city.

The more accurate way to do it would be to list it as a ratio. But that would make too much sense.

 

[Scrivener]

Ok, so I'm watching the news this morning. They are talking about how the national Murder Rate for the US has gone up 5%.

What I would like to know is how much has the population rised [sic]?

Population increase is irrelevant for the figures in question. The rate IS a function of population; i.e., x per 1,000 or 100,000 population.

It is percentage increases which are easily skewed. If you had two murders one year and three the next, it is a 50% increase with only one additional murder.

 

[greycar]

Boston stats

Are posted here :

UPDATED CRIME DATA - January 1st - June 11th, 2005 vs. 2006

http://www.bpdnews.com/2006/06/updated_crime_data_january_1st_17.html

180 shootings in five months ........ (21 fatal)

Chapter 180 working real well !

 

[MarkM]

According to a Boston professor (SURPRISE!) it's the NRA's fault.
This is the guy everyone used to pick on in school. Do a Google on him, wow.
This particular quote never made it into the AP article.

I heard that guy on the radio a couple of days back. What a kook!

 

[tele_mark]

I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but I'm reading from members of other boards who are residents of areas that took on NOLA refugees that their local crime rates have gone way up.

 

[Mike508]

What also needs to be considered, but something you won't find in the leftist-liberal media, is that one or two years of crime rate changes, up or down, do not make a trend. Though a change in a trend would have to begin somewhere (i.e., crime has risen 5% in the past year), the change could be an anomaly. And, don't think a 5% rise in crime is going to get past a commercial-driven media without a sincere attempt to bolster it's ratings misusing such information. Why that would be in violation of the news media's creed, which is to take sensationalism to it's max, year after year after year.