Tagged: statistics

Police resources and crime solving: A closer look at clearance rate trends in California

by · Nov 8, 2024 2:20 pm

A recent report by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ) tried to take a stand by exposing poor clearance rates of California law enforcement agencies. They specifically argue that police staffing levels and police spending do not translate to improved clearance rates and actually increase crime.

While clearance rates are an important metric for measuring police effectiveness, the conclusions of the CJCJ report are questionable because the analysis lacks depth and overlooks critical factors related to clearance rates. In this post, I’ll provide additional context to offer a more balanced perspective on the relationship between police resources, clearance rates, and crime rates. Continue reading . . .

Prop 47’s impact on crime in California

by · Oct 24, 2024 2:37 pm

When California voters passed Proposition 47 in 2014, the goal was noble: decrease incarceration rates for nonviolent offenders and redirect resources towards rehabilitation and public safety programs. The measure reclassified certain felonies to misdemeanors, thereby lowering the severity of penalties for certain offenses, and has been touted as a revolutionary step in California’s criminal justice reform. Proponents argued that this would lead to reduced recidivism and better community outcomes. However, a decade later, the reality is far from the success story many hoped for. A recent paper by the Manhattan Institute discusses some of the ways in which Prop. 47 has negatively impacted public safety and health and put strain on county resources.

Continue reading . . .

Unpacking the truth: California’s reforms and crime data accuracy

by · Aug 15, 2024 5:18 pm

In recent years, the debate surrounding criminal justice reforms in California, has sparked significant discussion. A recent paper by the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice claims that reforms such as Proposition 47 have led to a substantial decrease in property crime rates, citing a 53% reduction since 1995 and a 13% decline in Part I property crimes from 2009 to 2023. While the paper shows real data on reported crime, their analysis is oversimplified and missing several important details, presenting potential flaws in their argument.

Continue reading . . .

Recidivism trends in California: New CDCR report

by · Feb 21, 2024 2:55 pm

Recidivism rates are down, according to a new report by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). In a press release accompanying the report, they state that “the report marks the second year of data showing the effects of the passage of Proposition 57, and the findings point to lower recidivism rates for those who earned credits from participation and completion of rehabilitative programming.”  But this statement is misleading. While the data showed a slight decrease in recidivism rates, correlation does not equal causation, and this would be an overly simplistic interpretation of the data. There are other factors that could have contributed to recidivism rates, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which influenced crime rates and caused many court closures and temporary suspensions of intakes and transfers to CDCR, which likely influenced recidivism measures in this report. The report did not rigorously evaluate the impacts of Prop 57, and therefore, the findings are not sufficient to demonstrate a casual relationship between Prop 57 and reduced recidivism rates. Continue reading . . .

The problem with reducing reliance on incarceration: A commentary on Vera’s “new paradigm” on sentencing

by · Feb 16, 2023 2:06 pm

The United States should move away from incarceration and ultimately work toward a system that creates “real safety,” according to a new, widely circulated report from the Vera Institute of Justice. In the report, the authors claim that severe sentences do not deter crime nor help survivors of crime heal, and therefore are not achieving their intended purpose. However, the argument seems to be rooted in emotion rather than facts. The research actually presents a more nuanced picture.

The controversy regarding incarceration is not new, and has remained a major topic of debate in recent years. Clearly, there are many different opinions regarding the utility of incarceration and its effectiveness, many of which are emotionally-driven and not rooted in facts. Rather, the research on incarceration presents a very nuanced picture. It is simply naive to think that any one policy would be 100% effective or 0% effective, and these types of “all-or-nothing” arguments are often rooted in emotion rather than facts.

In this post, I’ll give an overview of the lengthy report’s executive summary and give my thoughts regarding their key points. Stay tuned for part two of this post, where I will perform a deeper assessment of the report in its entirety.

Continue reading . . .

Comparing nationwide violent crime estimates: Summary-based vs. incident-based reporting

by · Nov 22, 2022 10:53 am

The FBI released official 2021 crime statistics last month, but the data leaves major gaps in our understanding of national-level crime rates. Unfortunately, the numbers are incomplete this year because 36% of U.S. law enforcement agencies, some of them major cities, failed to submit their crime reports. This is largely because the FBI made major changes to the way that it collects crime data, making the submission process much more complicated. Rather than following the arduous process, many agencies simply declined to participate in last year’s data collection. In comparison, 2020 crime statistics included data from 85% of U.S. law enforcement agencies.

This post briefly reviews agency participation rates and discusses what that means for our current understanding of national-level crime. Then, using data from the years 2017-2020 (all of the years for which data from both systems are available),  I examine whether the two systems produce similar violent crime estimates. Continue reading . . .

Violent crime is a key issue for U.S. midterm election

by · Nov 7, 2022 11:47 am

Crime has become a big issue in the U.S. midterm elections. According to a recent Gallup poll, crime ranked as the second most important issue among voters, with 71% of registered voters saying it was either “extremely” or “very” important to their vote. This came second after the economy, which 85% of voters said would be extremely or very important to their vote. According to a different Gallup survey released a few weeks ago, more than half of Americans (56%) said there was more crime in their area compared to a year ago. According to Gallup, “That’s up a whopping 11 points from 2021 and 18 points from 2020, and is the highest mark ever measured.” This issue was a concern across party lines, with 73% of Republicans, 51% of Independents, and 42% of Democrats all agreeing that crime is getting worse (in 2020, these percentages were 38%, 38%, and 37%, respectively).

Continue reading . . .

Misconceptions about racial disparities in police investigations: Results from Tucson

by · Nov 4, 2022 11:13 am

Debates about racial inequalities in the criminal justice system have ramped up in the last several years. This has been largely driven by discussions about racially-biased police violence, but many also speculate about disparities in how the police treat crime victims. For example, one common belief is that the thoroughness of police investigations varies based on victim and officer race. But a recent study published in The Journal of Law and Economics (subscription required for access) suggests otherwise, at least in the context of residential burglary.

Continue reading . . .

FBI releases first quarter of crime data for 2022

by · Jun 9, 2022 2:20 pm

Earlier this week, the FBI released the first quarter of crime data for 2022. There has been no official government report published at this time, though I examined the data to get an idea of whether crime increased or decreased relative to the first quarter of 2021. Unfortunately, I was unable to compare the data to quarter one of 2019 and 2020 as those data are not currently available by quarter.

Rates for all types of crime remained relatively stable, though this may change as we head into the summer. Larceny offenses saw the largest increase, which was only a mere 0.08%, and overall property crime increased 0.05%. The largest decrease was for arson, which decreased by about 0.2%. Rates for murder decreased by .08% (see more details in the table below).