It's good news that the Fort Wayne crime rate is, as Mayor Henry says "the lowest in three decades." And we shouldn't begrudge Police Chief Rusty York a little bragging about "trending" and other preventive techniques they've been using. But it's myopic -- and a little disingenuous -- to pretend we've found some magic trick here when, in fact, we're just part of a nationwide trend that has seen a dramatic drop in crime that is baffling the experts:
Looking for some good news in a year full of economic woe? Crime was down in 2009. Way down.
According to figures released this week by the FBI, the overall crime rate dropped by 4.4 percent this year. Property crime dropped by 6.1 percent and homicides were down an eye-popping 10 percent. In fact, crime rates have fallen to levels not seen since the 1960s.
And this is during a severe recession when, all the "root cause" folks tell us, crime is supposed to go way up. The fact is, we really don't know very much about why crime rates go up or down -- as this New York Times story notes, "No single lens — sociological, econometrical, liberal or conservative — seems an adequate one through which to view crime." Maybe some of the decrease is due to advances in technology and better policing. But some of it might just be the simple fact that the population is aging and crime is generally a folly of the young.
Comments
Leo:
Another (important) factor as to WHY overall "crime" has gone down (while VIOLENT CRIME has actually gone UP, I might add, and was never mentiond), is that certain offenses were "reclassified" to more accurately reflect those TYPES of crimes...
In other words...statistical manipulation to assuage the masses.
Or we could say "smoke and mirrors".
(And the NYT is about as good an informational source as the National Examiner...LOL)
Either way.
Myopic?
Indeed.
The truth IS out there...you just gotta know WHERE to look.
;)
I think I'll keep carrying anyway, ... :-)
Larry:
Roger THAT!
Has it occurred to anyone that the legalization of abortion has reduced the number of poor, crime-prone, young men in the population? The timing is right.
That was the theory advanced in "Freakonomics," but it has been pretty well discredited -- see this, for example.
Well done, Leo...excellent link.
Yes, thank you. Freakonomics was exactly where I saw that. Apparently the author has backed off his hypothosis.
I still lean toward a demographics explanation, though. It's the simplest. I'm a big fan of Ockham's Razor.
Punks will always be punks, but there are fewer of them as the population ages. Personally, I'm too sore and tired to commit any crimes.
Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!
I meant hypothesis. Stupid fingers.
Bob,
If homicides are down a "whopping 10 percent," how can you say violent crime has actually gone up? What is more violent than killing someone? Or do facts get in the way of a good argument that despite stats showing the obvious, "Be careful, it's a jungle out there."
AJ
I can say it because it's true, that's why.
...Yeah, it's a jungle out there all right, and I have the neighbors to PROVE it!
...unless the FWPD blotter & radio calls are a pack of LIES.
(And BTW, not ALL violent crimes are homicides...FYI)
But homicides are the most violent of crimes. Would you have to dropping considerably, or other lesser violent crimes, like robberies?
The thing is, serious crime has dropped here in Fort Myers, and elsewhere and most metropolitan areas have experienced serious declines where it has even helped police departments with tight budgets.
Crime is like taxes, despite evidence to the contrary, every year is worse than the year before, and previous years/previous generations were so much more bucolic than today. In a few years, you'll be harking to 2009-2010 as Springsteen's "Glory Days."
AJ
While it's important to compile state and national crime statistics, it's a phenomenon that is felt most locally, yes? So overall crime in the city can be down, even violent crime, dramatically, and that won't make someone in a dangerous neighborhood feel any safer.
Sounds like a local recipe for paranoia. Even though the streets are safer, lets pull tight the shades and make sure are guns are loaded. Kind of a bleak neighborhood existence.
AJ
AJ, you are missing the obvious, in Bob's neighborhood, gunfire is a daily occurrence. All statistics aside, it's not paranoia when there are shots fired in your front yard.
Overall, the streets of ft wayne may be statistically safer, but in his 2 block range, incidents are up..
That ain't paranoia, that's life in his neighborhood.
yes, you can always find a two-block exception to good crime news elsewhere. But if the streets are safer elsewhere, let the cops concentrate then on the two blocks.
AJ
AJ:
It might be bleak, but rest assured...it IS coming to YOUR neck of the woods...and faster than YOU might think.
Ad it's NOT relegated to a "mere 2-block area...oh, no.
It's the whole bloody quadrant!
But if YOU lived here, you'd already KNOW that.
Be nice to have the PD run JUST this area, but THAT ain't gonna hunt, and we all know it.
(city gets $$$ for keeping this area the way it is -yasureyoubetcha)
But I never said that...and I was never "here".
;)
Bob, I doubt it's coming to my neck of the woods because my neck of the woods is gulf-front real estate. yes, crime can be found anywhere at anytime; just this past year, however, you find alot less of it alot less frequently.
AJ
...and MAY-BE, we can blame "your" stats on "global warming", too, sound fair enough?
:)
Just like the economy, crime is a local thing, only more so. National or even regional statistics on the crime rates going up or down usually don