So I’ve done a little work using the data from FatalEncounters.org on people shot and killed by police. Fatal Encounters is like the Washington Post database, but for adults. I combined/merged this with a city or police department’s population, number of cops, average number of murders in the jurisdiction (over 4 or 3 years), median household income, percentage Black, and…
Inspired by some twitter threads — mostly this onewith Gary Cordner and this onewith Andrew Wheeler — I thought I’d look more at the cops getting killed as a factor in cops killing people. I like presenting this stage of research. In part because coming up with ideas and hypotheses and basic number crunching is what I like doing most.…
Over at Nola Crime News, Jeff Asher tweeted this graphicjust now. Click on it; it moves! So while people are dying, I’m thinking about data presentation. There’s something about a moving line that may make one pay attention to dead people in a way that actual dead people don’t. Jeff’s graphic looks at Baltimore City shooting victims over the past…
Murder is up. Who knew? (I’ve been saying so since last October.) Eventually, we’re all going to have to accept this (not in a moral sense but in a statistical sense). The accepted liberal reaction to this increase seems to be “it’s not a big deal” and “Don’t freak out.” Let’s not get “hysterical.” Let’s talk about “gun control.” (In…
The 2015 UCRis finally out. This means we have real numbers on last year. And the numbers are not good. Homicide is up 10.8 percent. That’s biggest increase in 45 years. Don’t downplay it. I’ll talk about that in my next post, but first the boring roundup: Firearms were used in 71.5 percent, which is up from last year’s 67.9…
The good people at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law have assured us (pdf link to report): Reports of a national crime wave were premature and unfounded, and that “the average person in a large urban area is safer walking on the street today than he or she would have been at almost any time in…
A nice critique of quantitative data over at City Observatory. It’s about transportation planning, but the lesson can be applied to anything, especially policing: Reliance on data to solve complex problems is subject to what’s sometimes called the “drunk under the streetlamp” effect: An obviously intoxicated man is on his hands and knees on the sidewalk, under a streetlamp. A…
I love when other people do my writing for me! Thank you and keep these coming: On the racial disparity stuff, at least the DOJ is claiming they controlled for crime rates. (see p.63). But did they really? The report is full of boneheaded statements like “Despite making up only 41 percent of the Northern District’s population, African Americans accounted…
Why in the world are people reporting on last year’s data when we have current data at our fingertips? Does reality only happen after numbers are published on DOJ letterhead? NBC News reports: Number of Police Officer Killings Drops, Reversing 2014 Spike. Do reporters not have the wherewithal to see what the current situation is? It is but a mouse-click…
Wouldn’t it be great if I could show that video games decrease violence because young men, rather than hanging out and starting fights and shootings on the corner, stay inside and play “Call of Duty”? I don’t think people over 40 understand just how big video games are. Compare games to movies. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has grossed $935,500,000…