I’ve been pointing out for years that the actual stats from the police even haven’t matched the panic in the media. In America (and much of the world), we’re at a near all-time low for violent crime and most other crime, so any tiny increase looks huge, as it did during the pandemic. We’re now reverting to the (new) norm.

@glennf
Do you have any sense of how reliable the "actual stats from the police" are? The phrase makes me wonder about a who-watches-the-watchers situation.

@geoffduncan There is research into how accurate they are (but this varies by city) and about underreporting of crime. The thing is, though, that they are typically the stats used by those *claiming* a crime wave. So when the actual #s don't match the claims that's key by itself—during the high pitch of the panic, we were still at historical lows using the same numbers. The panic was often “murders are up 50%”—from an all-time low, and they increased in nearly every city and town for no reason.

@geoffduncan …and if you live in some places, it can seem like the idea there isn’t some kind of crime wave or huge increase in crime is ridiculous. They are obviously hotspots. Stats only capture some of the data and only averages, unless you drill down to specific precincts or even neighborhoods. The Trader Joe’s in the university district had to hire security after a guy got into their drop ceiling! That was after people just walking in and taking liquor off the shelves day in and day out

@glennf
Agreed. Examples like these don't seem hard to find, but translating from them to broader trends is a difficult job, and by their nature those even the most rigorously analyzed trends won't precisely reflect on-the-ground reality at a location, well, anywhere. Such are stats.

@geoffduncan I think what's useful is when you see the Federation of Retail Stores or whatever it’s called publicly admit that their analysis of their latest stats, which in the past have been seen as extremely reliable, were wrong—they exhibited rigor in admitting this and a lot of academics were happy to see that. (It was more about categorization of loss than an error in stats.) Those numbers from stores help to balance the police reporting, b/c stores provide more data to the federation.