a. There are more crimes to break then ever before.
True and troubling, but I'm not so sure its enough to change the overall stats much.
b. I am skeptical of EVERY statistic they throw at us.
Thats not a bad idea, but these statistics look reasonably solid, and (at least for violent crime) seem to be backed up by non-statistical looks at places like NYC (our biggest city, with one of the larger drops in violent crime), and to a lesser extent DC (where violent crime is bad, but clearly down from its peak).
Web sites like this - crimemapping.com
What specifically about that web site or its data?
Its data seems sparse (for example it only has three jurisdictions for VA, 2 for MA, 1 for NJ, and VT, and none for NY, DE, CT, RI, ME, VT, WV, TN, SC, IN, and KY, AL, and other states.
Also it has no past data, at least that I can find, so it would seem almost useless in terms of comparing past crime to present crime. |
