I'm just going to leave this here

[SteelCitySouth]

(09-10-2015, 11:51 AM)PhilHos Wrote:

PhilHos Wrote:It's not impossible to know. And it's quite important to know. For example, in the 70s, the definition of what constituted a "violent crime" could be vastly different than today and that could skew the numbers. Or where they got the numbers from? Did they get them from the same kind of sources? Were they taken from verifiable sources like files or were they taken from oral reports?

If, generally, the same method and definitions were used decades ago as was done recently, great, that only increases the legitimacy of the statistics/chart/graph. But, if there are vast differences between definitions or where how they got the data, then that legitimacy is diminished.

Everything I have looked into indicates that we have been keeping data relatively the same, however there are no specifics that I can find.  That being said I can't find anything that indicates that we have changed our view point on what a violent crime is and is not.

Quote:No, I'm not kidding. First off, we're not comparing 2 separate distinct communities. The comparison was with the same place just in 2 different time periods. So you're analogy can just suck it. Secondly, as rare as it may be, the RATE of violent crime may have gone down, but the actual number of violent crimes may have gone up. I'm not saying it has nor do I think it has, but again, I was curious if it has. Because in the rare possibility that the rate went down but violent crimes went up, then that adds a distinct wrinkle to the conversation.

The analogy was fine it's about population not place.  It's why we use rates vs sheer incidents.   Especially when you see that as we increase our population while at the same time we reduce our rate of violent crime.  Also within the rate lies the actual number...it's a simple math problem (Total Population / 100,000) * Rate = total number of violent crimes.  This can be applied per year.  

This may be interesting to compare years that are close together say 2012 and 2015 as the populations will be closer together, however comparing 1950 to 2015 would be useless without using a per-capita rate.

Quote: Lastly ('cause I know you like threes), my head hurts. No seriously, it does. I have a bad headache today. :frown:

Honeymoon must be over.