This post was going to compare police response times (RTs) in the ten most dangerous US cities with the RTs of the safest cities (link). Unfortunately, none of the dangerous cities had decent RT data, except for Oakland, California. But we’re in luck! Oakland has great data, not only for RTs but also for police staffing levels, both across several years.

There is no hard-and-fast threshold for an acceptable clearance rate. That said, Oakland’s rate is abysmal. No wonder Oakland’s the most dangerous city in the US!

These posts will explore factors that are thought to influence violent crime rates, such as police response times, clearance rates, conviction rates, sentencing norms, and demographics. I will limit my exploration to the 10 safest and 10 most dangerous cities listed in the above chart, the better to reveal patterns of influence. Hopefully, these cities keep good records.

“False consciousness [is] the notion that people are so misled about reality that they act against their own interests. What was once the preserve of Marxists, flummoxed that workers refused to lose their capitalist chains, is now the fall-back position for the modern [left], which worries that voters cannot accurately comprehend the world in which they live.” - Are voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?  The Economist, November 30, 2024.

These survey results reveal broad support for a get-tough approach to crime before 2000. Then, as the crime rate dropped, American attitudes softened - until crime rates rose again, a trend the following chart documents…

The FBI’s crime rates are based on arrests, whereas people in these states’ Criminal Legal System have been convicted of crimes. What I’d like to see is how much arrest rates diverge from conviction rates, and why they diverge, e.g., plea deals, diversion programs, prosecutorial discretion/approach to criminal justice, overzealous police over-arresting without sufficient evidence, etc. I imagine the prevalence of these various factors vary according to state, jurisdiction and local politics.

Does that mean science writers should avoid expressing opinions regarding the significance of whatever they’re writing about? No, but they should do so in the spirit of science: with an abundance of caution and plenty of hedging. Above all, they need to take care not to mislead or exaggerate.