Gothamist: NYC is Safest Big City Again

Blah

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:38:33 -0500

I hear that the NYPD uses various tricks to fool the CompStat Crime Tracking software to make it appear the crime rates are much lower than they really are. They make it difficult to even report a crime, they unreport crimes- list a felony as a misdemendor, they lump several crimes together into one Etc.

bored of ed

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:21:18 -0500

wow, it appears the good news trickle down the nyc schools. How can NYC schools have lower incidents of violence than suburban schools? me thinks something stinks.

matty

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:58:10 -0500

That site doesn't rank cities. It says why in the lower right hand corner of the front page.

nola

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:54:41 -0500

Every NYer (excepting criminals) owes Giuliani, Bloomberg and the NYPD a great deal of thanks for implementing aggressive policing. Of course the perennial adolescents of Gothamist would rather complain than appreciate how much better the city is, but who cares? The conservatives have won this argument.

Blike Moomberg

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:38:58 -0500

#3 and #4, you are correct, I was definitely unclear and I can see why you stated that. I was referring to the text on *this* website, Gothamist.com, stating this:As for NYC stats, the number of reported crimes dropped by 4.3% - a cumulative decrease of 17.7% since 2001. And while violent crime in the U.S. rose by 2.3%, it dropped 1.9% in NYC. The Mayor took the opportunity to say, “Today’s final 2005 report by the FBI shows that our innovative efforts to reduce crime and increase New Yorkers’ quality of life are working."This disregards out that while overall crime is down, homicides are up. But compared to the number of homicides, shootings are up. Burglaries are down but rapes are up. My point is that stats could mean anything. There's less sunshine, cloudy days are up. Vanilla ice cream is down, chocolate is up, strawberry is flat. It's all relatively sugar-coated.

Schadenfreudian Mensch

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:38:02 -0500

edEx, If it's a choice between living along side hipsters/yuppies and crackheads, crackheads will always win.

Miquel

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:04:31 -0500

Fluffy- You should lure some of the cops that are clustered together smoking cigs, texting their girlfriends, and poppin their eyes out their sockets at underage girls on my block to yours. I only only see cops where tourists and gentrifiers (tourists) are likely to be victims. Some neighborhoods are lucky to have police show up when they are called.

def wiss

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:59:28 -0500

Crime? What Crime? Where? I's feel saf hear. Streets safe Subways safe Bring on the 2012 Olympics.

Scott

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:46:38 -0500

Fluffy- Care to tell us what neighborhood that is? Would make your case more convincing.

edEx

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:36:17 -0500

#2 Fluffy: So, when or if your hood becomes gentrified will you be upset? or will you prefer the crime?

Tim Thompson

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:24:16 -0500

It seems to me they're basing it on reported crimes per capita, not on percentage decrease, Blike.

Michael

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:20:31 -0500

Not only can statistics be misleading, blog comment posters can be misleading and/or intentionally deceptive. The statistics quoted above DO NOT reflect a rate of change as Blike Moomberg suggests. They reflect crime index rates per capita. (Actual reported totals of crime as a percentage of population total). Here's my link.. a link to an article about the report.. not a link to some unrelated statistics story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/nyregion/19crime.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Nevertheless, I'm sure we'll hear all sorts of conspiracy theories about how the NYPD suppresses crime reports with one or two anecdotes from people who were told not to report their stolen bike. (As if this only happens in New York and not any other city...)

fluffy

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:11:31 -0500

This is not reflected in my neighborhood, at all. Right now, we are experiencing a resurgence of drug activity and gun violence. People have been shot, some have been killed. With the exception of one, none of these events have been reported in the news at all. Also, in my experience, the police in my area are understaffed, or something.

Blike Moomberg

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:56:19 -0500