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Comment by kristjansson | Hacker News Reader

100x is shocking, so I explored a bit. Over 2010-2020 Amherst PD reported ~5 violent crimes per year[1], in a town of ~10000, or about 50 per 100000. NYPD reported ~49k per year over the same period[ibid], on about 8.3m residents, or about about 590 per 100000. So about 11x difference in per-capita reported-to-local-PD crime.

I'll admit I'm surprised it's still an order of magnitude, I share GP's sensibility that the cities are generally much safer than perceived

[1] https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crim...

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NYC gets dozens of millions of visitors annually, in addition to people commuting in daily and people transiting through the city. So, while the number of crimes is high, the number of people actually in the city at any given time is multiple times the number of people who reside there. Probably the total number of people in the city anually is 10x the people who live there.

I'd also factor in the numbers are higher also because policing is very robust. I can't think of any other city where I saw a cop nearly as often as NYC, they're everywhere.

Anecdotally, I never felt unsafe there. Although where I grew up crime was rampant, common, and expected- so comparatively NYC seemed really safe, and it wasn't hard to avoid high risk places/situations. I do think people hype up the crime numbers, and forget to consider the variables present in a megalopolis which aren't present in smaller cities.

> Probably the total number of people in the city anually is 10x the people who live there.

That number doesn't really matter, does it? I'd think the average number of people there each day is much closer to the relevant number.

> I'd think the average number of people there each day is much closer to the relevant number.

Yes, and that "average number of people there each day" would include all the non-residents/tourists in the city. Which is a non-trivial number at all for NYC.

Yes, of course it would count them. But that number will be much much smaller. If the average visitor is there for a week, then a million yearly visitors only increase the daily population by 20k. You'd expect a crime increase equivalent to 20k residents or less.

So if there really is an 11x increase in crime, along with a 10x increase in yearly population, that's actually a huge increase in crime on a per-person per-day basis.

> If the average visitor is there for a week, then a million yearly visitors only increase the daily population by 20k

Correct, but NYC had 66 million visitors in 2019[0], which is way more than 1mil you guesstimated.

Which, conversely, would increase the daily population by 20k*66=1.32mil. 1.32mil is a non-trivial increase in daily population at all.

0. https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/osdc/tourism-industry-ne...

Too late to edit, but I should emphasize a comment down thread that this is a crude, worst-case estimate of the difference between OP's town and NYC. Don't take this as 'NYC is 10x more violent', take this as 'The difference is at least 10x _smaller_ than stated'

"Violent crime" is not a consistently defined or tracked category across cities, so it isn't comparable. The NYPD has a notoriously... loose definition of "violent crime", to the point where it counts things that no reasonable person would be thinking of when they hear that term.

For this reason, researchers typically use homocides to make comparisons, because that's consistently defined and tracked across jurisdictions, and because it's harder to manipulate those statistics when recording.

NYC - particularly Manhattan - has a much lower homocide rate than other places.

Very fair point, my comment should be read as a worst-case estimate of the comparison. In homicide terms, GP's town averages ~2 per 100k (although they haven't had one for the last few years) while NYC averages ~4 per 100k.

I am not surprised. NYC gave up on violent crime. It's Democrat's policy. Same as in Chicago, SF, Los Angeles, and many other Democrat-run cities.

One of the reasons I left NYC. I'm now in one of the safest neighborhoods, we have virtually no violent crime, except from the occasional visiting criminals.

Good. I’m glad you got the fuck out of our city with your alarmist, non-factual nonsense.

It's not alarmist. I look at the crime stats instead of listening to propaganda.

And I am glad my taxes don't support Democrats' pro-crime policies.

But you're sharing propaganda instead of crime stats. So all you've done is repeat a Republican party "talking point", which in the context of crime over time is nonsense.

Plenty of evidence of DAs in Democrat-run cities not prosecuting violent criminals.

In Portland mobs fully control the streets, drag people out of cars and beat them, they threaten people, while police is just standing and watching. This is on video, not propaganda.

I’m glad you enjoy Florida or Texas. Don’t get anyone pregnant accidentally cos you know why…

I have two kids. They are great.

Parts of Florida great. Never been to Texas.

> In Portland mobs fully control the streets

So you follow-up propaganda with hyperbole, and pretend that extreme outliers are somehow a normal representation.

There's also plenty of evidence of Republican-run cities locking up innocent people, or conservatives attempting a violent coup during a transition of power. It's a silly game.

It's not hyperbole. Get out of your bubble want watch some street reporting instead of trying to spin propaganda.

I’m confused. Your previous post said you pay attention to crime stats, but you reference a video before you pull a crime stat citation, and you also don’t link to said video.

> NYC gave up on violent crime. It's Democrat's policy.

Could you explain that? Crime is trending down in NYC over the last 20 years.

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_...

Even according to this, murder and manslaughter is significantly up in the last 2 years.

But you're also ignoring the fact that in other parts of the country these crime rates are 1-10% of these numbers. NYC could be much safer, if the right policies were applied.

Isn't manslaughter up all across the US in the last 2 years... attempting to use a pandemic as a stat and then say it's a trend is on the border of unethical.

No doubt it could be safer but I'm asking you to explain how NYC gave up on crime. In 20 years the crime rate looks like it went down maybe ~45%?

I believe the south has the highest per capita murder rate which is mostly Republican led. It's states with lower education and higher poverty that have high murder rates. I think blaming Democrats or Republicans is misguided. We're a country pretty evenly split and there's no place that's a panacea.

For some reason no one wants to blame a lack of education, poverty or a lack of opportunity on crime (per your above statement). Everyone wants to get into these weird, esoteric arguments about what might have cause the crime rates that aren't germane to the actual, easily identifiable problems... most likely so no one has to try and solve those issues.

Violent crime is up in many places. In fact it has increased more in Rural America more than it has in NYC.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/10/blame-rur...

Crime is up after the lull that was the COVID lockdowns. Less crimes occurred when everyone was at home and the economy was essentially halted. Great argument.

curious what you think the "right policies" are; the vast majority of high crime areas are republican controlled, so it can't be that.

Garbage in, garbage out.

People use these sorts of stats in Seattle to pretend that crime hasn’t gotten worse in the last few years.

The reality on the ground is much different, most people just don’t bother reporting crime, because it’s not worth the effort and the police probably won’t come anyway.

In what year did the stats become garbage then? If they were always garbage then crime has gone down. Do the stats become worse each year while crime goes up?

When the DAs in Democrat-run cities stopped charging criminals. I think there's a case in Seattle where one guy assaulted 23 people, one at a time, and they just let him go over and over again. No charges.

So the current Seattle district attorney is a current Republican and an ex-Democrat. So crime should get better then? Is she materially better at her job after switching parties a year ago? Do you see how weird the logic is to blame Democrats for all that goes wrong?

I know this sounds insulting but you seem like seem to have bought into a narrative of them versus us. There are ills on all sides, we are all humans who are mostly trying to make it through. Yes, there are people that are terrible at their jobs and cause harm. Yes, they are in both parties. If there was a third party they would be there too. Sure, vote and support people that align with your values but life is not a binary thing.

The current Seattle district attorney had been just 6 months at her job. Do you think it's reasonable to revert the effect of the previous 12 years in such a time frame?

Not at all. My point is life doesn't move along party lines.

You don't make your point then. The most notorious crime-enabling DAs are Democrats (Gascone, Boudin, Bragg, Schmidt etc) yet you pick a Republican DA who managed to upset an incumbent Democrat in one of the bluest cities because even there people got fed up with crime and point at her, saying that both parties enabled crime because in her 6 months she didn't clean up Seattle.

OK, I am obviously talking about something that's been going on for years, and you dodge by mentioning a DA who just got elected.

So dishonest. And gaslighting.

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