A big question I ask people is “Why do we feel less safe even though crime is at an all time low?” Not a lot of people have answers, and I think way too many people aren’t aware of that fact. It’s one of the safest times to walk through any downtown core, yet people feel the least safe they ever have.
The answer is the media.
It’s not all of the media, it’s editorialized news, opinion pieces, debate format shows, etc.
Yes, those are the media to which they are referring.
But it’s not “the media” it’s the heavily editorialized media. There are plenty of credible sources who remain neutral who don’t deserve to be lumped in with the rest.
The problem is not everyone agrees on what exactly “editorialized” and “credible” means. You’re making the same arguments they would make against you.
The thing is, I don’t feel less safe walking down the street. I can’t really relate to people who do. That drives the divide further.
That’s definitely part of the problem. I had an incident recently where an older family member had a minor panic. Because I left my (mfg in 2006!!) vehicle running in the driveway while I ran inside. During the day. In a very safe suburban neighborhood. Just a flat out absurd concern and she leapt right to it, instantly. She’s always been concerned, she’s a grandma, but she wasn’t pointlessly terrified like this years ago.
I think many of us don’t realize how badly this irrational fear has taken hold, or maybe I should say how effectively this irrational fear has been deployed. Otherwise ~reasonable people are walking around thinking the worst is going to happen everywhere at all times, based on absolutely nothing - worse than nothing, it’s based on weaponized deception.
That’s really the problem. When I friends from small towns come and visit I can see they’re on edge the entire time while I’m just doing what I do every day. Yes there’s a person sleeping there. Yes someone is screaming a block down. There’s traffic noise, and the subway isn’t the cleanest - but it’s normal, that’s what I’m used to. It takes a bit of thicker skin, but once you realize nothing is really unsafe about it it gets easier. Problem is voters from tiny 20,000 population places vote with that fear already, and think that cities are unsafe. We can’t bring everyone to the city and hold their hand.
Many of them still believe that cities are full of buildings burnt down by BLM and immigrants are raping people in the street. They will never visit, and thus will always believe this.
it’s all vibes, you are way more likely to get hurt from a car crash than crime yet people have no problem driving.
Here in my city we just opened up a rail line extension. I’ve seen literally hundreds of comments saying it’s not safe, all calling back to a stabbing in February. Which is horrific I know. But that’s one death in a decade.
No one seems to know what to say when I call out the average 100 traffic fatalities every month in our state. That’s just normal apparently, but city bad scary when 1 person in 10 years is killed
Assuming the statements are correct, maybe it’s because people feel less safe. Fewer people go outside which results in fewer crimes being committed.
That’s actually a big thing I’m into, and especially with the urbanist movement. People in America are very isolated, we live in suburbia, we drive our cars to work, and we work with our tight group of coworkers. We don’t have third places anymore where you meet the people who live around you, and most don’t take transit and aren’t in an urban core so you aren’t surrounded by people like you. Our neighborhoods aren’t mixed in terms of wealth either, so when you do see a neighbor, you’re seeing a mirror of yourself - someone who could afford a similar home in a similar region, and probably is just like you. So everyone becomes the other, and everything becomes very scary. It’s probably why I feel fine walking through downtown. Everyone around me are just people like me, and by going out it reinforces that.
My ex spouse got an app that gave alerts every time there was anything going down in our neighborhood. They went from cautious to walk around at night to “omg we live in a crime riddled hellhole with people being murdered everywhere” and stopped going outside. People now have access to so much information, often explicitly designed to make you fearful, and we suck at statistics
Crime is down because there’s less cops to commit it lmao.
depends, which areas are they counting crime? Which areas are they counting police quitting?
Don’t take the word of a meme for something like this. Look into how those statistics were counted.
(edit: Spelling error)
This article goes over a bit of both if you trust npr more than some random socialist propagandist but The trends for both are nationwide. Police staffing has been going down since BLM became a thing and public respect and love for cops went down. This one doesn’t give years but it says 5% over the last couple years. The change is bigger in larger more liberal cities. Chicago is down 13% since 2018 , san francisco which inspired this meme is down 20% since 2017 while at the same time seeing a ~30% decrease in crime over the past year.
Crime is also down all over the country, home break ins have been steadily declining since 2018 when the police staffing “problem” started. Murders have also dropped 12% over the past year along with alot of other crimes
They would say it’s because police are getting better at their jobs or something
Or maybe that fewer police = fewer crimes being caught and tracked for statistic purposes
But you see that would be an intelligent argument.
That’s not the kind of argument these people make.
They also don’t vote intelligently either, apparently…
Crimes aren’t tracked by completion rate, just by report. While staffing rates might be down, that wouldn’t affect total number of crimes reported as nearly all people are covered by third party 911 service.
…and if they can day that with a straight face, give them an Oscar!
(I say this as a kiwi looking from afar)
What’s the percentage chance someone has misunderstood the difference between causation and correlation?
Not saying less cops = less crime, just debunking the classic thin blue line narrative of less cops = more crime
veritassium did this fascinating af video mirroring a study on people’s political biases and how it influences reasoning: it seems like the more educated or intelligent you are, the more your biases interfere with your ability to analyze positions that are contrary to your own views and that interference is proportional to your level of education/intelligence and the people who don’t have either are able to reason mostly the same whether or not their biases where challenged.
“video mirroring a study”
Lmao
I watched veritassium for a short while, but i can’t take them serious with all the click bait. Can you provide a link to the proper study instead?
it’s in the description of the video: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
But contrary to the prediction of SCT, such polarization did not abate among subjects highest in Numeracy; instead, it increased. This outcome supported ICT, which predicted that more Numerate subjects would use their quantitative-reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks.
I dunno if equating numeracy with intelligence is a fair read, but an interesting study nonetheless.
that’s how he defines numeracy in the video but he used the word “smarter” on youtube. i didn’t think it fit either so i just went with “intelligence” because it means acquiring and using knowledge in a similar way to numeracy; but was still in keeping with the source & the youtube video.
Alternate title: A single “study” presented from someone on the street is typically not enough to change anyone’s perspective on a subject, especially if that “study” presents “facts” that are contradictory to the listener’s previous knowledge.
Humans aren’t rational. Humans are rationalizing. If someone on the street giving you a basic chart with 4 numbers on it is enough to change your mind, you likely didn’t have much of an opinion to begin with.
it’s literally a study conducted by Yale; as in the ivy league university: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
the video reproduces the study in a shortened format suitable for youtube.
Yeah, and they act like learning about a new skin cream on the street is going to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as learning about a new study on “gun bans”, even though people have been studying this for decades and the results largely don’t change, only the public perception of them.
It’s like if they showed people a new study for “Earth gravity” vs “Moon gravity” and act surprised when people don’t immediately catch on when their numbers say the moon makes you weigh more. You wouldn’t be expecting that result OR trust a random person on the street to change your view of gravity with a chart of 4 numbers.
Yes, they found bias. Cool.
And when there are 0 cops, 0 crimes will be recorded. Brilliant!
I don’t think that’s what anyone suggests. However the opposite is what needs to be called out. Why do police departments consistently ask for more and more funding, usually looking for reasons to spend it (see urban assault vehicles, larger and more militarized forces) when crime is down already? If they’re doing fine with the budget they have, why do we need to give them even more money?
“Defund the police” doesn’t mean we have no police. It means they’re overfunded. Let’s see about defunding them and giving some of that money to other people, like mental health advocates or groups that help with homelessness - some of the main causes of crime. Wouldn’t that mean the police can focus on things they are trained for while also cutting crime down at it’s source? If someone is never desperate enough to mug someone in the first place, doesn’t that mean the crime was prevented?
Defund the police doesn’t mean abolish the police
Me:
That’s incredibly dumb.
Lol, I disagree- sorry not sorry
So no laws then huh?
Right. Is this your first time encountering an anarchist?
Nope, I do just enjoy pointing out stupidity when I see it.
Just because you don’t know the first thing about a subject doesn’t mean it’s ‘dumb’
It means you’re ignorant and lazy
And maybe you should approach a new subject and belief as a student before you decide to mouth off like a fool
That’s your assumption based on literally nothing.
It means your presumptuous and dumb.
The same applies to you ya fuckin hypocrite.
your dumb
Ahahah, their dumb what?
An anarchist thats a Grammer Nazi, again par for the dumbfuckin course.
You’re definitely on the right track.
The only actual job of the police is to file crime reports.
They do not prevent crime. Protect innocents. Make people show up for court etc. They have no obligation to stop a crime in progress or protect someone being hurt, even if they’re standing right there and could stop it.
Anything in the justice system that you value is either done by someone else, or actually isn’t done at all.
Let’s abolish the police, therefore no one can report crime to the police, but then we see people reporting crimes elsewhere and as it turns out, crimes still happen, even when not reported to the police. This is a very good argument for increased gun ownership! No police, no law enforcement, no law, well I’ll just have to take the “law” into my own hands. Can’t see how that would cause chaos.
Must have dropped out of strawman school…
And when cities get revenue from traffic violations, traffic violations go up. Funny how that works.
Same with covid, if you don’t look for it, you will not find it.
It’s hard to hide some crimes. If someone reports a body, someone reports a body.
And it’s rather easy to hide some other crimes
Like white collar crimes that police never go after
Jesus christ just think for a fucking second about what you’re saying.
It seems you are better at that than me. What is it I am saying?
That police find crimes? That without police there to stop crime it happens but in secret. But police would only influence traffic infractions. Violent crime relies on civilian reporting. The odds of police just coming across a crime is vanishingly small.
Are there numbers about police staffing being down I can look at?
Police staffing has been going down since black lives matter became a thing. They dont get the same unquestioned respect and love like they used too so no one wants to be a cop any more. This one doesn’t give years but it says 5% over the last couple years. The change is bigger in larger more liberal cities. Chicago is down 13% since 2018 , san francisco which inspired this meme is down 20% since 2017 and all the mayoral candidates are falling over themselves to say they’ll solve it even though crime is down.
A lot of departments can’t even get qualified applicants, so many positions are there but going unfilled.
Yeah, but the restrictions are also getting loosened to fill some of the positions. So we’re getting the people we never thought should be on the police force either 😬 at least that’s the case in Chicago. It makes for a worse experience over time.
Don’t get me wrong, there is so much reform that’s needed still. If there’s an emergency I am calling the police, and I’d like someone who knows what they’re doing to respond.
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well cant report crime if there is no one to report to no?
Just to play devils advocate here is crime going down because of underreporting (either from smaller budgets or corruption to boost the image of a town / department)
What’s the source for this claim?
You could maybe argue that if the drop was only in small petty crime. Yeah a shopkeeper may stop reporting shoplifting after the 10th time the police don’t respond. That under reporting goes down as the crime gets more serious. Your probably going to report a home break in to the cops even if you know they won’t do anything since you’re going to need a police report for insurance, home break ins have been steadily declining since 2018 when the police staffing “problem” started. This seriousness holds very true for murders which have dropped 12% over the past year
That’s assuming the victims would be under reporting, if you’re saying the police departments, government etc. Are under reporting then that’s getting into conspiracy territory. Especially because we’re seeing this trend reported across the nation so the conspiracy would have to be massive.
Also if the government had the ability to do this why would they start now? This idea isn’t too complex so someone could have easily come up with it and started doing it a while ago. If that were the case we’d never see crime rates go up as the politicians would just under report every year and make it look like crime is going down. But we have seen reported crime go up, noticeably in 2022 , and instead of hiding that many politicians and police departments showcased it as a reason to Crack down on crime and increase there budgets.
