Well, by current standards, they would all be charged as felons.
"Your honor, this defendant is charged with assault with a foot-long, a crime, i think we can all agree is among the worst imaginable. At the Justice Department we take this crime so seriously, that I, Attorney General Pam Bondi, have chosen to prosecute this monster myself. If found guilty, and of course he will be once President Trump's list of approved jurors is seated, we will demand the death penalty."
AG Bondi added that: "If Hitler had had foot-longs in the late thirties and forties he would have undoubtedly won the war. And, yes, in that case it would have been a good thing, but you get my point."
In response the judge, Aileen Cannon replied: "Thank you, Pam and, yes, I get your point and wholeheartedly agree. Therefore, I am dismissing the jury -- no need for them here, since I am declaring the defendant guilty and hereby sentence him to death by drawing and quartering. The sentence will be carried out in my bad yard tomorrow at 11AM. Brunch will be served and there will be a cash bar. Commemorative t-shirts will be for sale as well as all the standard Trump Merch. Dress will be patriotic casual. Trump bless America. This trial is now adjourned."
True. Absolutely TRUE! But it is not going to happen. Period. Full stop.
All of this discussion talked about crime in America, changes in crime over the years and in different parts of THIS country. But none of it addresses the question about why crime remains so much higher in some of the safest cities in America (compared to the rest of the world) and lower in some of the most "dangerous" cities anywhere else in the world. Clearly it is more than just the presence of guns, although that remains a big factor. Guns explain why there is so much murder in America. (Guns are really lethal) They do NOT explain crime of ALL kinds is also so much higher in America in general. Otherwise a very valuable discussion. Thank you.
I would argue that a look at history since the middle ages would convince you that Europe has been far more violent than the US over the last 400 years. A useless comparison perhaps. But maybe we should ask why Europe is so much LESS violent since WWII. I would still argue that is has little to do with guns alone.
"The pandemic era surge was caused by 'Black Lives Matter' and 'defund the police.' " How exactly do you know this? 'Defund the police' was a slogan, NOT a policy -- not even a Dem policy! And it was supposed to be about getting more help for mental health situations anyway. You're throwing around a lot of opinions but I don't see them tied to actual facts. Doesn't it cross your mind that the pandemic ITSELF disrupted a lot of lives? And of course, it seems obvious that you hate Democrats so there's that. They must, at all times, be blamed for everything.
That PDF mostly discusses homicides by victim demographic, not by perpetrator, thus your conclusions are questionable at best. Also, looking at raw data without correcting for relative wealth and similar factors throws everything out the window.
I listened to the whole thing. Like I said, it was two people not talking about crime. How can you be so obtuse as miss the connection between Black Lives Matter, Defund the police and the crime surge that followed? Crime in the 1990s went down because we built a lot more prisons, hired more cops and put the criminals in prison. Democrats need to go back to talking about crime the way Bill Clinton did. He called out the 'superpredators' in the black community and hired over 100,000 extra cops. African-Americans loved him.
Love it. MAGA on Paul Krugman's substack proving his point that even if there's information to learn, they refuse to learn it, and instead talk out their backside, using feelings instead of facts.
You are a racist atavist.
I'd say you and people like you are the superist predators of all.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but no, Giuliani didn't do that. The NYC murder rate began to fall before he started office and continued to fall after he left. Further, we see the same trend in other major US cities as well as nationally. Those are areas in which everyone agrees Giuliani's policies would have had no effect.
In fact, the precipitous drop in crime in the 1990s nationwide is to a considerable extent causally related to the legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade in 1973.
As Republicans always do, Giuliani got credit for the effect of Democratic policy.
Trump grossly exaggerates crime because his mind is so full of crimes he and his associates committed that he sees them first when he looks outward. I.e., he sees his own thoughts before his vision reaches the outside world. Plus, of course, he hopes to manipulate and distract us.
GOP = Grand Ole Projection, or, more aptly put, "every accusation is a confession."
Thanks for the reality check. I wonder what role innumeracy plays in people’s willingness to believe trump’s bluster? I read that it’s estimated that 29% of people in the US lack basic numerical skills — and I wonder how that overlaps with the MAGA base. I’m guessing a lot. If numbers confuse and scare you, then a distrust of education, of science, of general population statistics, etc. makes sense.
pkidd makes an important point. “Innumeracy” by mathematician John Allen Paulos was an important book which discusses the real-world consequences of innumeracy.
It’s even worse when it comes to understanding statistics. I’ve witnessed numerous episodes of small business owners with good basic bookkeeping skills come undone by statistical sampling methods.
As for innumeracy, I’ve also witnessed professionals with advanced degrees (i.e. lawyers like RFK jr) literally panic and leave meetings hastily when numbers start getting discussed.
I'm a (retired) lawyer who is very good with words, not so good with numbers. But that doesn't make me reject science or, you know, math related stuff. I know what I don't know - and I always knew to go to the experts to help me with what I don't know.
Darrell Huff's "How to Lie With Statistics" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics) should be a prerequisite for high-school graduation. It won't be; I tend not to be conspiracy-minded, but the incentives for the people running the world tend not to run in favour of ensuring that the masses would know statistics, maths, critical thinking, the scientific method—one thinks of the Church's fear of Biblical translation into the vulgar tongues….
The →perception← of high crime is fed by a lot of things.
In terms of news media, "If it bleeds, it leads."
In terms of TV shows, crime is more exciting than everyday life. (Now if they could get Shark Week to use a Land Shark to attack people, the ratings would go through the roof.)
Here's the thing: In present day USA there is no shame in innumeracy like there is with illiteracy. People have no problem saying "I'm terrible at math!" Some even wear it proudly, as in the flippant response "You do the math". But no one would ever say "My reading comprehension is terrible!" It makes no sense, especially when you add in the fact that not only does the USA refuse to use the much easier metric system, but it also chooses to use fractions instead of decimals. Quick: You have a wooden railing that you need to divide into 5 equal length sections. The railing is 13 feet, 2 and 3/8ths inches long. What's the length of each piece?
The research on crime prevention is quite astonishing - only because it is ignored. If we want to prevent crime...get kids into sports or the arts. 74% more of at risk kids in sports do not engage on crime relative to kids who do not have access to sports. The sports and arts kids are not lonely and vulnerable to joining gangs for a sense of belonging. Mentoring...having an adults outside of the world of poverty and violence to speak with, parental support and training, and of course, education to get lower income kids to the same level of reading and numeracy as their counterparts. Canada has produced a meta analysis that shows that the tax payer nets $1.4 million for every kid kept out of the criminal justice systems. (See https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2016-s005/2016-s005-en.pdf ) Seems a worthwhile thing to do but people want to see police on the street even at the price of not covering money laundering or on-line crime.
Pardon the simplification, but the vast majority of people get their “impressions” of a situation like the prevalence of crime from the mass media. Those “impressions” are partly because of partisan disinformation in the case of right wing media, but more commonly are a form of misinformation from an incompetent “mainstream” media which fails to grasp the critical importance of reporting - “headlining” - when major political and right wing media figures lie about verifiable fact.
People's "impressions" of crime is a function of how much crime they witness in all forms of entertainment — which is mostly what everyone sees in our movies and on the internet. and in the news. We are saturated in images of violence.
A story circulated in the Philippines after the election of former actor Joseph Estrada as president in 1998 to explain why the usual local barons had not been able to get his opponent elected, as everyone supposed the barons would have been able to do.
One of the barons explained that he tried his best but that it was to no avail because people were saying they were going to vote for Estrada because he was the only candidate who had fought against the Japanese in the war.
Estrada, who was born in 1937, had appeared in a lot of war movies.
So you are saying that he never fought anybody except as an actor in the movies. Incredible! That, shockingly, may be exactly why Trump was elected....because he fired so many people on television. That may be EXACTLY why he is firing so many people now. Many may have voted for Trump because he could wrestle big hulks in the ring. This may be the key to all the insanity.
I must gently disagree. I worked in the courts for years with crimes ranging from vandalism and DUI to rape. I watch a lot of cop shows on TV, but I see the area where I live as fundamentally safe and low crime, even though I view the daily crime statistics to see what's going on.
While reducing the number of guns would stop some murders, it wouldn't stop all. Just consider the arson at Gov. Shapiro's home and similar crimes where people have or might have died. If someone wants to murder, they will. Ditto, stealing, raping, etc. I suspect that impulsive shootings would decline, but planned murders would not.
I have no idea what the percentage might be, but certainly more gun safety would result in fewer deaths by guns, both murders and accidents. I live in a Southern area where it's legal to carry guns without permits now, not even any safety training, which is a great way to increase deaths.
I always am amused how gun lovers see the scenario of people packing concealed weapons or brandishing them at assailants as the actual deterrent.
Yet, they are statistically never there at mass murder events to heroically take out the active shooter. Oh, that’s right I forgot the movement to arm classroom teachers…
Yes, that dilemma has occured to me more than once and the several police officers I’ve talked with concurr. I also recall an instance I believe at a CC in Oregon where an armed veteran decided NOT to intercede.
The media in all its forms is clearly a significant factor. As the author says they don't cover when plane's land. However I would argue that significant increases in people living on the streets gives many people the impression that things are becoming lawless and lawlessness means more crime. I don't see how you can discount people's day to day visual experience as a contributing factor.
I have a theory that - at least in the reddest areas of my red state - the fact that people see more black and brown faces in their historically white areas feels threatening to them, and that fear leads them to the incorrect conclusion that there must be a factual basis for their fear. Those scary looking people must be criminals! But I hadn't thought of homeless people on the streets, and I think you're probably right about that.
When I was younger, I used to say that something had to be unusual to be newsworthy, and if it was that unusual, it wasn't important. Of course, when I was young, we didn't have much in the way of mass shootings.
These two comments: more homeless on the street and more black and brown people in formerly all-white spaces seem like plausible parts of the explanation for why the public thinks crime has increased. People can’t observe crime rates directly, but they certainly can observe both of these things. There probably are several other elements to this perception, but these two are a good place to start.
People can see raw crime data easily. Several companies publish daily emails with crime within a 5 mile radius of the area you specify. It's disturbing that people assume that Black or brown people commit more crime. I live in a new-ish mixed neighborhood that is ex-urban but is well-developed. Happily, I see Black and brown faces around the neighborhood. I never suspect them of crime. The guy who used to live next door, yes, probably drug-related, but not these lovely families.
Also crime tends to dominate whisper networks--rumors of home invasions, gossip on Nextdoor and Facebook groups, including the unofficial "scanner" ones. In small towns and rural areas where there isn't any media available (no newspapers, no local TV or radio), those whisper networks tend to exaggerate the degree that crime exists.
I had to get off of Next Door. Tired of my blood pressure going up every time some idiot reported seeing a "suspicious black man" who was "casing" the neighborhood, also known as "walking down the street and glancing at the houses you pass.
Yes. I seldom look at NextDoor other than to advertise something. I was staying in my parents' home a dozen years ago when a Black man came to the door looking for work. I said I didn't have anything for him and he moved on. A little while later, the police showed up, asking about him because the next door neighbor called them. She was terrified for no good reason, so it had to be his color and the fact that there had been some rapes a few blocks away a couple of weeks before. I asked them to leave the guy alone. I knew he was harmless.
"But there is this consistent story, which is that if you ask people what's happening to crime, they've been through that epic decline, yet people keep on saying that crime is bad and getting worse. And I've said a few things about that. But I'm just curious for your take on why the public perceptions, or least what people say is their perception, differ so much for that."
I'd say there are three explanations: social media, social media and social media.
It was easy to get people riled up about industrial pollution with video of birds drowning in oil, but how do we characterize the cancer of social media in our society? Especially now with most of social media pushed by bots and designed to rile people up and get them to believe nonsense.
Don't omit Fox "News" and its many imitators. Incessant false sensationalism has a pronounced effect on perceptions, especially when employed in service of partisan extremism.
Great information and important benchmark for us. I think it's inevitable that the progress on our crime rates may slip. The poverty levels increases crime rates and our country will see more poverty , the unmanaged kind due to the horrible cuts on services provided by the government. That poverty especially around the most vulnerable may prop up this militarized excuse currently employed by this vile regime. Doesn't that fit into their plans.
Only BIG CITIES? What's happening to crime in rural areas, suburbs, small towns where most of the Trump voters live? The majority of Americans do not live in any of the big cities that dominate the national discussion. So, two questions: what are the OTHER crime statistics, compared to the big cities? and what drives the need to talk only about the biggest cities?
Asher mentions that in the article. Maybe he provides info on it in his Substack. Anyway, the focus on big cities seems to be primarily political as an attack on Democratic mayors & governors.
There's a journalist in Florida who used to do a video post every day. In one of his videos, he mentioned that the murder rate is higher in urban areas, but the number of disappearances is much higher in rural areas. My thought on that is that it's just easier to hide the bodies in rural areas.
There's also a lot of people who consciously choose to "disappear" in rural areas. Some places are darn good locations to go hide--I worked in one of those areas, where there were a lot of people hiding out from various things--the law, financial stuff, and so on. Now that place was more properly an exurb rather than a rural area (40 miles from a medium-sized urban area) but those fringes tend to attract people who want to be near an urban area but want a place to hide out where the law isn't as visible a presence.
Sally, you are looking at the data as including the surrounding suburbs. There is a huge difference in say living in Alexandria Va, which is a suburb of D.C.and living in S.E. Washington in terms of being a crime statistic
No details included. Just my besty Chat and I generating numbers. I did grow up in very rural Wyoming and now work “on the road” in a county that is 1,910.4 square miles. It also contains the second largest city in the state. Just general advice for aging people, don’t live so rural that 911 is not going to be able to find you in a reasonable amount of time and that county services are going to be difficult (garbage, water, etc). I believe this will be come more of an issue as resources dwindle in the face of the climate crisis. Cities will have their challenges but they may be better able to adapt than rural settings.
There are parts of SE that have less crime than most of Alexandria and there are parts of Alexandria that have more crime than most DC Neighborhoods. You need to learn more about DC and probably your own backyard.
Crime discussion in those areas tends to be driven by whisper networks, both in person and on social media, especially if there is no local mass media.
David Hackett Fisher has written a book, The Great Wave, where he follows 700 years of English records which show that the inflation rate and the murder rate are highly correlated. It still is true today. Correlation is not causation but it is intriguing.
When are we going to learn that what tRump says is irrelevant. What matters is that he can override too much law by declaring emergencies without basis in fact and use those declarations to give himself king-like power. Where are the effective standards and limits on who can declare emergencies and how that is verified for accuracy. He can also choose not to declare an emergency even though one clearly exists, for example just look at Puerto Rico and North Carolina after various hurricanes he chose to ignore not to mention failing to help California after various massive fires. The state of emergency and following help should be non-partisan.
The BBC figured out what triggered DonnyJon's rant about homeless people in DC. He went out to one of his courses in Virginia to play his version of golf. The route "the Beast" took to get him there went right past a park full of homeless people.
No, that was his excuse for calling in the National Guard and taking over the police force. Someone beat the crap out of one of the DOGE guys. My bet is that someone got fired by this DOGE AH and recognized him on the street.
Bull's-eye. There need to be fundamental evidentiary standards for a valid declaration of emergency, especially emergencies that purport to justify draconian measures.
The point missing in your excellent and erudite analysis is that people have an indelible zero tolerance attitude toward violent crime. An instructive analogy might be to car safety. We put in steering wheel airbags and crush zones, but then we want side wall airbags and more optimization with every new model year seeking even more improved safety, though practically speaking the cost would ultimately make car ownership impossibly expensive and we might have to pursue unpopular approaches such as lowering speed limits. The pivotal question in crime is what degree of loss of personal freedom with what level of spending is the limit. Add to that, the conflict between surveillance and privacy issues on the left and resistance to public spending on the right, and the problem becomes impossible to balance to everyone’s satisfaction. As we continue to debate this issue, the current political climate will probably emphasize how the two camps favor emphasizing different solutions. Getting all of these nuances communicated clearly and constructing a balanced and utilitarian platform that achieves bipartisan support is the key.
Interesting Richard, I don’t know about the cost of safety feature that could include side view warning, auto-lock brakes to avoid collision etc. as making cars impossibly expensive, but that’s not why I am responding.
I feel we are moving rapidly to what I call the “French Village” scenario combined with “Minority Report” technologies to providing the Gestapo surveillance on steroids that you see as potentially coming our way.
All this generated fear of murderous foreigners and criminals rampant in the streets serves the fascists as a psychological lever to accelerate their agenda.
Yes, agree, and I do find it exceedingly hard to figure out which political persuasion subgroup wants to give up a significant amount of personal freedom (and allow things like CCTV everywhere or troops in the streets) in exchange for a higher sense of personal safety. This dilemma cuts across groups identifying as Dems or Reps. A de novo third party might have a chance at messaging in a way that is walking this tight narrow line between the two extremes and thus capture some enthusiasm on this challenging topic.
We already have “surveillance” at virtually every major traffic intersection to track faces and liscense plates.
Once we have the institutional means to “denounce” our neighbors the “French Village on Steroids” will have a complete state of fear and a nirvana for Fascism.
In my mind the 2026 elections will be the single most important test of our Democracy or its demise for the next three generations.
That was echoed by one of my professors. He taught that severity of punishment did not serve as a deterrent. The only thing that deterred potential criminals was the certainty (or lack thereof) of getting caught. IIRC, that was Sociology.
So government investment in infrastructure and people helps with, well everything. And now the government under trump is taking away this investment and help. I wonder what will happen…
We're kind of all Guinea pigs in a large-scale experiment. The Biden recovery surge investments appear to have been nurturing an environment in which crime goes down because everyday life is improving. But now the Trump regime is not only failing to continue the investment, but in fact seems bent on trying to destroy as much of it (and its positive effects) as possible while exaggerating the ill societal effects the investments were addressing.
The stated reasons are fiscal: we just can't afford the spending, but the primary reason for that is 40 years of ratcheting down tax revenues through Republican tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor the most comfortable while maintaining a bloated military at the expense of so much else.
Correlation isn't causation, of course, but if the lawlessness gets significantly worse through this ugly experiment of contraction, that will be an answer of sorts.
Did anyone else notice who got the blame for lack of emergency response after the Texas floods? The blame went to FEMA which the locals now want to eliminate because it didn't help. The blame did NOT go to Gov. Abbott, President tRump, or to the local politicians who failed to accept what help had been offered at various times, e.g., from Biden or State loans rather than outright grants.
thank you for this interview. I learned a lot, and want to thank folks like Mr. Asher for holding the line on the information and statistics we truly need to correctly drive the decisions and policies that impact all of us.
Housing isn't just a profit center. Affordable housing is also a service that is provided via the political process. Some politicians look for votes by doing what is good for the voters and some look for campaign contributions by doing what is good for those with deep pockets. I keep coming back to my very over simplified service delivery model:
budget - overhead = service
which, when privatized, becomes
budget - overhead - profit = less service
and when optimized becomes
budget - overhead - more profit = even less service
This model speaks to and exposes primary motivation per Sherlock Holmes. Look to motivation first because it is the strongest filter when looking for clues in a who done it.
Great article, but it again serves to remind me of how unrestricted gun laws result in a large number of homicides. It’s great than NY city homicide rate is right down but still over 500 for a city of 8million. Australia (pop 26 million) had 256 homicides in the WHoLE country in the same time period.
Thats what restricting and banning guns achieves. Until the US learns to put the collective good above individual freedoms when it’s obviously better to do so, Americans will continue to slaughter each other in industrial quantities.
If the American public wants to feel as safe and crime-free as Germany, Japan or England, then ban guns nationally. Period. Full stop.
Imagine if J6ers had sandwiches!
The horror!
Well, by current standards, they would all be charged as felons.
"Your honor, this defendant is charged with assault with a foot-long, a crime, i think we can all agree is among the worst imaginable. At the Justice Department we take this crime so seriously, that I, Attorney General Pam Bondi, have chosen to prosecute this monster myself. If found guilty, and of course he will be once President Trump's list of approved jurors is seated, we will demand the death penalty."
AG Bondi added that: "If Hitler had had foot-longs in the late thirties and forties he would have undoubtedly won the war. And, yes, in that case it would have been a good thing, but you get my point."
In response the judge, Aileen Cannon replied: "Thank you, Pam and, yes, I get your point and wholeheartedly agree. Therefore, I am dismissing the jury -- no need for them here, since I am declaring the defendant guilty and hereby sentence him to death by drawing and quartering. The sentence will be carried out in my bad yard tomorrow at 11AM. Brunch will be served and there will be a cash bar. Commemorative t-shirts will be for sale as well as all the standard Trump Merch. Dress will be patriotic casual. Trump bless America. This trial is now adjourned."
The Onion has one headline that it has repeated for the many shooting sprees in the US:
‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
True. Absolutely TRUE! But it is not going to happen. Period. Full stop.
All of this discussion talked about crime in America, changes in crime over the years and in different parts of THIS country. But none of it addresses the question about why crime remains so much higher in some of the safest cities in America (compared to the rest of the world) and lower in some of the most "dangerous" cities anywhere else in the world. Clearly it is more than just the presence of guns, although that remains a big factor. Guns explain why there is so much murder in America. (Guns are really lethal) They do NOT explain crime of ALL kinds is also so much higher in America in general. Otherwise a very valuable discussion. Thank you.
America has always been a violent country.
I would argue that a look at history since the middle ages would convince you that Europe has been far more violent than the US over the last 400 years. A useless comparison perhaps. But maybe we should ask why Europe is so much LESS violent since WWII. I would still argue that is has little to do with guns alone.
Good luck. (And yeah, when people say, "You'll pry my gun out of my cold dead hands," my response is, 'Sounds good!"
Yes! But politically impossible
right now, yes. I try to remain hopeful about the future... if we have one!
"The pandemic era surge was caused by 'Black Lives Matter' and 'defund the police.' " How exactly do you know this? 'Defund the police' was a slogan, NOT a policy -- not even a Dem policy! And it was supposed to be about getting more help for mental health situations anyway. You're throwing around a lot of opinions but I don't see them tied to actual facts. Doesn't it cross your mind that the pandemic ITSELF disrupted a lot of lives? And of course, it seems obvious that you hate Democrats so there's that. They must, at all times, be blamed for everything.
At the end of this comments thread you will find another post with more facts in it. And take a look at the chart linked here:
https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/hvus23.pdf
That PDF mostly discusses homicides by victim demographic, not by perpetrator, thus your conclusions are questionable at best. Also, looking at raw data without correcting for relative wealth and similar factors throws everything out the window.
Did you listen to the interview? It sounds like you have preconceived notions and do not care to learn the facts.
MAGA -- facts have no place in their lives.
I listened to the whole thing. Like I said, it was two people not talking about crime. How can you be so obtuse as miss the connection between Black Lives Matter, Defund the police and the crime surge that followed? Crime in the 1990s went down because we built a lot more prisons, hired more cops and put the criminals in prison. Democrats need to go back to talking about crime the way Bill Clinton did. He called out the 'superpredators' in the black community and hired over 100,000 extra cops. African-Americans loved him.
Love it. MAGA on Paul Krugman's substack proving his point that even if there's information to learn, they refuse to learn it, and instead talk out their backside, using feelings instead of facts.
You are a racist atavist.
I'd say you and people like you are the superist predators of all.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but no, Giuliani didn't do that. The NYC murder rate began to fall before he started office and continued to fall after he left. Further, we see the same trend in other major US cities as well as nationally. Those are areas in which everyone agrees Giuliani's policies would have had no effect.
In fact, the precipitous drop in crime in the 1990s nationwide is to a considerable extent causally related to the legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade in 1973.
As Republicans always do, Giuliani got credit for the effect of Democratic policy.
Trump grossly exaggerates crime because his mind is so full of crimes he and his associates committed that he sees them first when he looks outward. I.e., he sees his own thoughts before his vision reaches the outside world. Plus, of course, he hopes to manipulate and distract us.
GOP = Grand Ole Projection, or, more aptly put, "every accusation is a confession."
As has been said by others, the highest crime area in DC right now is centered at the White House...
I agree, there is a lot of white collar crime going on in DC.
Excellent comment!!
Thanks for the reality check. I wonder what role innumeracy plays in people’s willingness to believe trump’s bluster? I read that it’s estimated that 29% of people in the US lack basic numerical skills — and I wonder how that overlaps with the MAGA base. I’m guessing a lot. If numbers confuse and scare you, then a distrust of education, of science, of general population statistics, etc. makes sense.
pkidd makes an important point. “Innumeracy” by mathematician John Allen Paulos was an important book which discusses the real-world consequences of innumeracy.
It’s even worse when it comes to understanding statistics. I’ve witnessed numerous episodes of small business owners with good basic bookkeeping skills come undone by statistical sampling methods.
As for innumeracy, I’ve also witnessed professionals with advanced degrees (i.e. lawyers like RFK jr) literally panic and leave meetings hastily when numbers start getting discussed.
I'm a (retired) lawyer who is very good with words, not so good with numbers. But that doesn't make me reject science or, you know, math related stuff. I know what I don't know - and I always knew to go to the experts to help me with what I don't know.
RFK Jr thinks he knows everything! Why consult lying experts?
'When youʼre rich they think you really know.'
To be fair, he spent much of the 1980s being right about water quality….
Darrell Huff's "How to Lie With Statistics" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics) should be a prerequisite for high-school graduation. It won't be; I tend not to be conspiracy-minded, but the incentives for the people running the world tend not to run in favour of ensuring that the masses would know statistics, maths, critical thinking, the scientific method—one thinks of the Church's fear of Biblical translation into the vulgar tongues….
The →perception← of high crime is fed by a lot of things.
In terms of news media, "If it bleeds, it leads."
In terms of TV shows, crime is more exciting than everyday life. (Now if they could get Shark Week to use a Land Shark to attack people, the ratings would go through the roof.)
Here's the thing: In present day USA there is no shame in innumeracy like there is with illiteracy. People have no problem saying "I'm terrible at math!" Some even wear it proudly, as in the flippant response "You do the math". But no one would ever say "My reading comprehension is terrible!" It makes no sense, especially when you add in the fact that not only does the USA refuse to use the much easier metric system, but it also chooses to use fractions instead of decimals. Quick: You have a wooden railing that you need to divide into 5 equal length sections. The railing is 13 feet, 2 and 3/8ths inches long. What's the length of each piece?
MAGA are defending going into DC big time. They say that crime is still bad (I’ve never been there and I live Canada, where guns are regulated.)
LOL - I can hardly wait for the pharmaceutical companies to start sending me $ every time I buy a medication from them!
The research on crime prevention is quite astonishing - only because it is ignored. If we want to prevent crime...get kids into sports or the arts. 74% more of at risk kids in sports do not engage on crime relative to kids who do not have access to sports. The sports and arts kids are not lonely and vulnerable to joining gangs for a sense of belonging. Mentoring...having an adults outside of the world of poverty and violence to speak with, parental support and training, and of course, education to get lower income kids to the same level of reading and numeracy as their counterparts. Canada has produced a meta analysis that shows that the tax payer nets $1.4 million for every kid kept out of the criminal justice systems. (See https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2016-s005/2016-s005-en.pdf ) Seems a worthwhile thing to do but people want to see police on the street even at the price of not covering money laundering or on-line crime.
Pardon the simplification, but the vast majority of people get their “impressions” of a situation like the prevalence of crime from the mass media. Those “impressions” are partly because of partisan disinformation in the case of right wing media, but more commonly are a form of misinformation from an incompetent “mainstream” media which fails to grasp the critical importance of reporting - “headlining” - when major political and right wing media figures lie about verifiable fact.
People's "impressions" of crime is a function of how much crime they witness in all forms of entertainment — which is mostly what everyone sees in our movies and on the internet. and in the news. We are saturated in images of violence.
A story circulated in the Philippines after the election of former actor Joseph Estrada as president in 1998 to explain why the usual local barons had not been able to get his opponent elected, as everyone supposed the barons would have been able to do.
One of the barons explained that he tried his best but that it was to no avail because people were saying they were going to vote for Estrada because he was the only candidate who had fought against the Japanese in the war.
Estrada, who was born in 1937, had appeared in a lot of war movies.
So you are saying that he never fought anybody except as an actor in the movies. Incredible! That, shockingly, may be exactly why Trump was elected....because he fired so many people on television. That may be EXACTLY why he is firing so many people now. Many may have voted for Trump because he could wrestle big hulks in the ring. This may be the key to all the insanity.
Interesting. Kind of like people assuming Trump is the person he was on TV.
John Wayne could have been elected to any office. As combat veterans put it, "He fought in every war but a real one."
I must gently disagree. I worked in the courts for years with crimes ranging from vandalism and DUI to rape. I watch a lot of cop shows on TV, but I see the area where I live as fundamentally safe and low crime, even though I view the daily crime statistics to see what's going on.
While reducing the number of guns would stop some murders, it wouldn't stop all. Just consider the arson at Gov. Shapiro's home and similar crimes where people have or might have died. If someone wants to murder, they will. Ditto, stealing, raping, etc. I suspect that impulsive shootings would decline, but planned murders would not.
My impression is that most murders are impulsive murders. Don’t know if it’s closer to 60% or 90%, but most, by a big margin, anyway.
I have no idea what the percentage might be, but certainly more gun safety would result in fewer deaths by guns, both murders and accidents. I live in a Southern area where it's legal to carry guns without permits now, not even any safety training, which is a great way to increase deaths.
I always am amused how gun lovers see the scenario of people packing concealed weapons or brandishing them at assailants as the actual deterrent.
Yet, they are statistically never there at mass murder events to heroically take out the active shooter. Oh, that’s right I forgot the movement to arm classroom teachers…
Actually, every now and then there is an armed "good guy with a gun" at a mass shooting. The problem is that if he pulls his gun out, he's likely to be mistaken by the cops as the shooter - with dire results for him. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/28/colorado-gunman-police-officer-killed
Yes, that dilemma has occured to me more than once and the several police officers I’ve talked with concurr. I also recall an instance I believe at a CC in Oregon where an armed veteran decided NOT to intercede.
I call them barstool braggarts.
Even professional trained responders have to refresh their training regularly to be able to shoot accurately in a high adrenaline situation.
As for people who sleep with a gun nearby, how many would be clear thinking if they were abruptly wakened from REM sleep?
What’s the old saying? War is long periods of boredom, sparked by moments of chaos. Insanity? Probably both.
The media in all its forms is clearly a significant factor. As the author says they don't cover when plane's land. However I would argue that significant increases in people living on the streets gives many people the impression that things are becoming lawless and lawlessness means more crime. I don't see how you can discount people's day to day visual experience as a contributing factor.
I have a theory that - at least in the reddest areas of my red state - the fact that people see more black and brown faces in their historically white areas feels threatening to them, and that fear leads them to the incorrect conclusion that there must be a factual basis for their fear. Those scary looking people must be criminals! But I hadn't thought of homeless people on the streets, and I think you're probably right about that.
When I was younger, I used to say that something had to be unusual to be newsworthy, and if it was that unusual, it wasn't important. Of course, when I was young, we didn't have much in the way of mass shootings.
These two comments: more homeless on the street and more black and brown people in formerly all-white spaces seem like plausible parts of the explanation for why the public thinks crime has increased. People can’t observe crime rates directly, but they certainly can observe both of these things. There probably are several other elements to this perception, but these two are a good place to start.
People can see raw crime data easily. Several companies publish daily emails with crime within a 5 mile radius of the area you specify. It's disturbing that people assume that Black or brown people commit more crime. I live in a new-ish mixed neighborhood that is ex-urban but is well-developed. Happily, I see Black and brown faces around the neighborhood. I never suspect them of crime. The guy who used to live next door, yes, probably drug-related, but not these lovely families.
Also crime tends to dominate whisper networks--rumors of home invasions, gossip on Nextdoor and Facebook groups, including the unofficial "scanner" ones. In small towns and rural areas where there isn't any media available (no newspapers, no local TV or radio), those whisper networks tend to exaggerate the degree that crime exists.
I had to get off of Next Door. Tired of my blood pressure going up every time some idiot reported seeing a "suspicious black man" who was "casing" the neighborhood, also known as "walking down the street and glancing at the houses you pass.
Yes. I seldom look at NextDoor other than to advertise something. I was staying in my parents' home a dozen years ago when a Black man came to the door looking for work. I said I didn't have anything for him and he moved on. A little while later, the police showed up, asking about him because the next door neighbor called them. She was terrified for no good reason, so it had to be his color and the fact that there had been some rapes a few blocks away a couple of weeks before. I asked them to leave the guy alone. I knew he was harmless.
"But there is this consistent story, which is that if you ask people what's happening to crime, they've been through that epic decline, yet people keep on saying that crime is bad and getting worse. And I've said a few things about that. But I'm just curious for your take on why the public perceptions, or least what people say is their perception, differ so much for that."
I'd say there are three explanations: social media, social media and social media.
It was easy to get people riled up about industrial pollution with video of birds drowning in oil, but how do we characterize the cancer of social media in our society? Especially now with most of social media pushed by bots and designed to rile people up and get them to believe nonsense.
Don't omit Fox "News" and its many imitators. Incessant false sensationalism has a pronounced effect on perceptions, especially when employed in service of partisan extremism.
I think that this was a phenomena long before social media played a part. It was just "the media" and its 'if it bleeds it leads" ethos.
And who would be amazed to find out that they have the exact same video games in countries whose crime rates are a fraction of ours!
It’s a Deep State psyop. /s
Great information and important benchmark for us. I think it's inevitable that the progress on our crime rates may slip. The poverty levels increases crime rates and our country will see more poverty , the unmanaged kind due to the horrible cuts on services provided by the government. That poverty especially around the most vulnerable may prop up this militarized excuse currently employed by this vile regime. Doesn't that fit into their plans.
Only BIG CITIES? What's happening to crime in rural areas, suburbs, small towns where most of the Trump voters live? The majority of Americans do not live in any of the big cities that dominate the national discussion. So, two questions: what are the OTHER crime statistics, compared to the big cities? and what drives the need to talk only about the biggest cities?
Asher mentions that in the article. Maybe he provides info on it in his Substack. Anyway, the focus on big cities seems to be primarily political as an attack on Democratic mayors & governors.
Trump is targeting Dem-run cities.
There's a journalist in Florida who used to do a video post every day. In one of his videos, he mentioned that the murder rate is higher in urban areas, but the number of disappearances is much higher in rural areas. My thought on that is that it's just easier to hide the bodies in rural areas.
There's also a lot of people who consciously choose to "disappear" in rural areas. Some places are darn good locations to go hide--I worked in one of those areas, where there were a lot of people hiding out from various things--the law, financial stuff, and so on. Now that place was more properly an exurb rather than a rural area (40 miles from a medium-sized urban area) but those fringes tend to attract people who want to be near an urban area but want a place to hide out where the law isn't as visible a presence.
According to chatPPT, 4 out 5 people or 80% of people live in cities.
Sally, you are looking at the data as including the surrounding suburbs. There is a huge difference in say living in Alexandria Va, which is a suburb of D.C.and living in S.E. Washington in terms of being a crime statistic
No details included. Just my besty Chat and I generating numbers. I did grow up in very rural Wyoming and now work “on the road” in a county that is 1,910.4 square miles. It also contains the second largest city in the state. Just general advice for aging people, don’t live so rural that 911 is not going to be able to find you in a reasonable amount of time and that county services are going to be difficult (garbage, water, etc). I believe this will be come more of an issue as resources dwindle in the face of the climate crisis. Cities will have their challenges but they may be better able to adapt than rural settings.
About half of New Jersey could be considered a suburb of NYC.
There are parts of SE that have less crime than most of Alexandria and there are parts of Alexandria that have more crime than most DC Neighborhoods. You need to learn more about DC and probably your own backyard.
Crime discussion in those areas tends to be driven by whisper networks, both in person and on social media, especially if there is no local mass media.
David Hackett Fisher has written a book, The Great Wave, where he follows 700 years of English records which show that the inflation rate and the murder rate are highly correlated. It still is true today. Correlation is not causation but it is intriguing.
When are we going to learn that what tRump says is irrelevant. What matters is that he can override too much law by declaring emergencies without basis in fact and use those declarations to give himself king-like power. Where are the effective standards and limits on who can declare emergencies and how that is verified for accuracy. He can also choose not to declare an emergency even though one clearly exists, for example just look at Puerto Rico and North Carolina after various hurricanes he chose to ignore not to mention failing to help California after various massive fires. The state of emergency and following help should be non-partisan.
The BBC figured out what triggered DonnyJon's rant about homeless people in DC. He went out to one of his courses in Virginia to play his version of golf. The route "the Beast" took to get him there went right past a park full of homeless people.
I heard it was because one of the DOGE guys was in an attempted carjacking in DC.
No, that was his excuse for calling in the National Guard and taking over the police force. Someone beat the crap out of one of the DOGE guys. My bet is that someone got fired by this DOGE AH and recognized him on the street.
OK.
Bull's-eye. There need to be fundamental evidentiary standards for a valid declaration of emergency, especially emergencies that purport to justify draconian measures.
The point missing in your excellent and erudite analysis is that people have an indelible zero tolerance attitude toward violent crime. An instructive analogy might be to car safety. We put in steering wheel airbags and crush zones, but then we want side wall airbags and more optimization with every new model year seeking even more improved safety, though practically speaking the cost would ultimately make car ownership impossibly expensive and we might have to pursue unpopular approaches such as lowering speed limits. The pivotal question in crime is what degree of loss of personal freedom with what level of spending is the limit. Add to that, the conflict between surveillance and privacy issues on the left and resistance to public spending on the right, and the problem becomes impossible to balance to everyone’s satisfaction. As we continue to debate this issue, the current political climate will probably emphasize how the two camps favor emphasizing different solutions. Getting all of these nuances communicated clearly and constructing a balanced and utilitarian platform that achieves bipartisan support is the key.
Interesting Richard, I don’t know about the cost of safety feature that could include side view warning, auto-lock brakes to avoid collision etc. as making cars impossibly expensive, but that’s not why I am responding.
I feel we are moving rapidly to what I call the “French Village” scenario combined with “Minority Report” technologies to providing the Gestapo surveillance on steroids that you see as potentially coming our way.
All this generated fear of murderous foreigners and criminals rampant in the streets serves the fascists as a psychological lever to accelerate their agenda.
Yes, agree, and I do find it exceedingly hard to figure out which political persuasion subgroup wants to give up a significant amount of personal freedom (and allow things like CCTV everywhere or troops in the streets) in exchange for a higher sense of personal safety. This dilemma cuts across groups identifying as Dems or Reps. A de novo third party might have a chance at messaging in a way that is walking this tight narrow line between the two extremes and thus capture some enthusiasm on this challenging topic.
We already have “surveillance” at virtually every major traffic intersection to track faces and liscense plates.
Once we have the institutional means to “denounce” our neighbors the “French Village on Steroids” will have a complete state of fear and a nirvana for Fascism.
In my mind the 2026 elections will be the single most important test of our Democracy or its demise for the next three generations.
MAGA constantly talks about criminal migrants. They’re obsessed with it.
That was echoed by one of my professors. He taught that severity of punishment did not serve as a deterrent. The only thing that deterred potential criminals was the certainty (or lack thereof) of getting caught. IIRC, that was Sociology.
So government investment in infrastructure and people helps with, well everything. And now the government under trump is taking away this investment and help. I wonder what will happen…
We're kind of all Guinea pigs in a large-scale experiment. The Biden recovery surge investments appear to have been nurturing an environment in which crime goes down because everyday life is improving. But now the Trump regime is not only failing to continue the investment, but in fact seems bent on trying to destroy as much of it (and its positive effects) as possible while exaggerating the ill societal effects the investments were addressing.
The stated reasons are fiscal: we just can't afford the spending, but the primary reason for that is 40 years of ratcheting down tax revenues through Republican tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor the most comfortable while maintaining a bloated military at the expense of so much else.
Correlation isn't causation, of course, but if the lawlessness gets significantly worse through this ugly experiment of contraction, that will be an answer of sorts.
Did anyone else notice who got the blame for lack of emergency response after the Texas floods? The blame went to FEMA which the locals now want to eliminate because it didn't help. The blame did NOT go to Gov. Abbott, President tRump, or to the local politicians who failed to accept what help had been offered at various times, e.g., from Biden or State loans rather than outright grants.
That was even worse in North Carolina after Helene blew through. They had armed yahoos "hunting" FEMA agents.
thank you for this interview. I learned a lot, and want to thank folks like Mr. Asher for holding the line on the information and statistics we truly need to correctly drive the decisions and policies that impact all of us.
Housing isn't just a profit center. Affordable housing is also a service that is provided via the political process. Some politicians look for votes by doing what is good for the voters and some look for campaign contributions by doing what is good for those with deep pockets. I keep coming back to my very over simplified service delivery model:
budget - overhead = service
which, when privatized, becomes
budget - overhead - profit = less service
and when optimized becomes
budget - overhead - more profit = even less service
This model speaks to and exposes primary motivation per Sherlock Holmes. Look to motivation first because it is the strongest filter when looking for clues in a who done it.
Or as the old Marxian line goes; Privatize the profits and socialize the costs.
Great article, but it again serves to remind me of how unrestricted gun laws result in a large number of homicides. It’s great than NY city homicide rate is right down but still over 500 for a city of 8million. Australia (pop 26 million) had 256 homicides in the WHoLE country in the same time period.
Thats what restricting and banning guns achieves. Until the US learns to put the collective good above individual freedoms when it’s obviously better to do so, Americans will continue to slaughter each other in industrial quantities.
MAGA loves guns.