He has no idea what he’s talking about. The City Of Seattle is one party rule AND DOES NOT HAVE the level of Gun Violence as Chicago. The Big cities have Millions Of people stacked up one on top of the other. Three Million People live in Manhattan alone. If you spread them out Manhattan would overflow into the Other Boroughs. Giuliani knows better.
8
I fell so sorry for the people of South and West Chicago. There appeal to President Trump for help says volumes. Follow the money, the politicians want and support the well being of the of the connected in Chicago. Money and Corruption rules. Where is my black lives matters friends, My friend are dying
5
Too many journalists and news editors think Giuliani has the remotest idea what he’s talking about.
6
"We should ... demand greater transparency from police departments regarding their staffing, databases and resources."
Eads, a "data journalist" seems to be suggesting that things are not so bad as they appear, and that the problem is with the police departments rather than folks who, you know, shoot other folks. A decrease in crime is seen as nullifying the alarm expressed by politicians who (correctly) note that unacceptably high levels of crime, especially when compared to other countries. In other words, he is saying that shooting the messenger is preferable to addressing the actual causes of human suffering. Missives such as this one only encourage the GOP to double down.
4
The biggest abuse of crime data is by the politically correct crowd, who try to manipulate the data so as to present a version that is in line with their dogma but is a distortion of reality.
16
Why would politicians stop cherrypicking numbers when journalists do the same all the time? I have been reading NYTimes for 18 years since high school and the more education and knowledge I got the less I trust the Times. The fact is, journalists are like the average American, quite undereducated in statistics and quantitative analysis and couldn't really interpret complicated numbers when so many terminology seems complex and similar. What's the difference between mean, mode, average, medium, weighted average?
One number I saw years ago indicates 47% or so American don't understand pie chart. I would fathem a guess that 95% of American don't understand the mean, mode, average question I asked above. If the speaker, audience and observer have no idea what the numbers mean, how accurate can they absorb the knowledge?
The effect of this is the mass hysteria we see everyday. Nuclear power, coal, autonomous vehicle, GMO, vaccine, California label laws, Russian hackers and chicken nuggets.
15
Amen, brother. While I take the point that data is important, neither journalists or politicians, or government bureaucrats deal in germane, probative, statistically-significant facts. Cherry-picking is less accurate a term than a probability that if their lips are moving they are lying, and if they aren’t moving it is a dead certainty.
Our eardrums are scarred shut. We can’t hear you anymore.
5
None of this can be fixed in a vacuum. Giuliani’s ego notwithstanding, it takes smart policing, reasonable expectations with a long view mindset, people who are fed up and unwilling to accept the status quo, legit opportunities for those on the margins of criminal and anti-social behaviors, the ability to speak out without fear of retribution and a valid fourth estate response that eschews the hyperbole and keeps the politicians feet to the fire.
2
"[politicians] disrespect our intelligence and our democracy."
nah, they just sound foolish and uninformed. voters might also seem foolish for listening to them.
besides not listening to (and not writing about) political statements, the best solution to political statements of cherry-picked isolated numbers might be better analysis of better data.
as anyone who studies the issues knows, crimes have multiple causes and multiple (mini-) solutions. no single factor, including the absence of a political opponent, will magically solve the issues.
and speaking of crime data and the court system, you could have discussed more the differences in data over time and the differences in crimes (ex., intentional homicide v. unintentional homicide from accidents) and how they are prosecuted, or not, across jurisdictions, including national jurisdictions. for example, compare US to canada to mexico to china to russia--each of which has different laws, histories, cultures, political parties and gang problems relative to the others, and possibly some similarities.
What is the age of Trump, if not the age of disrespecting our intelligence and our democracy?
3
Mr. Eads should perhaps be a little better with his data. Violent crime rates in America are in fact higher than in 1960. Not just higher but more than double. The murder rate now is slightly higher than in 1960. For both there was an increase that started in 1960, peaked in the mid-90's and declined. Why is an unknown variable here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
But our murder rate is much higher than almost every European country. Over half of murders are committed by Blacks -- mostly killing other Blacks. And most of these murders occur in urban areas. Historically, most of the cities where the murder rates are high have been governed by democrats. For whatever reason, the murder rate for Blacks is 7x that of non Hispanic Whites and the violent crime rate is 3.5x. Who knows why. It could be a combination of things. But to argue that somehow the decline in violence and murder since 1990 makes it wrong for a Republican to criticize the mayor of a city with a large homicide and violence problem is wrong.
From what I can find the homicide rate for Blacks has been at least 7.5x or greater than whites going back to the 1950's. Now -- is this cultural? Is it neglect because authorities ignored what was going on in the Black community? Or is it something else? I don't know the answer. But from the data I can find it looks like the decline since 1990 has been due to a lowering of any abysmally high rate for Blacks. Better policing?
20
Just because Democrats rule does not mean they are the Cause Of The High Murder Rate.
4
Crime trends are down? In California many 'crimes' have been down graded so what used to be a serious offense are now inconsequential misdemeanors People are robbed,cars stolen, house broken into but in cases where monetary thresholds are not crossed there is no reportable crime.
It is liberal Hocus Pocus crime reduction.
15
I don’t think people pay much attention to politicans and unfortunately the media.
1
The misuse of data by politicians to intentionally mislead voters is just one more sign of the total corruption of our political system. We need laws that allow us to prosecute people who violate their oath by undermining the principles of our constitution
Politicians involved in the most important decisions citizens made violate advertising rules that no car maker or detergent maker or fishing lure maker could ever violate. The SEC and FCC would shut them down
It seems politicians simply do not have the moral sense to be dismayed with how the public sees them. They seem oblivious to the reality that no one trusts what they say, and therefore cannot trust them to act in our interests.
3
The biggest problem with crime statistics is spin. Other than James Comey, most law enforcement professionals respect their duty not to disclose confidential matters. So what we know about arrests is what the person arrested tells us and what any video may show. Inmates give us the only account of prison brawls. Defense attorneys tell us about courtroom injustice. And those on death row tell us about their innocence. When all your sources are tainted, the headline screaming Injustice is likely suspect.
1
Headline: Too Many Politicians Misuse and Abuse Crime Data
This is characteristic of politics in this country today, especially from the right. Facts and data no longer matter in the discourse. Sad.
2
Once again America’s Mayor is lyning as he usually does. I remember stop and frisk I remember police brutality
Since this old man has memory problems let me say he was a human rights abuser for anyone who wasn’t Lilly white and lived on the east side.
He was a terrible mayor and it’s no surprise he is working with the Russian page.
4
This is an
excellent article.
Crime rates go up or down for three major reasons,
1-Demographics
2-Demographics
3-Demographics
To be fair all politicians demagogue the issue but especially Republicans and especially Giuliani.
The great drop in crime in NYC during his term was due to massive changes in demos but he demagogued the issue to term the NYPD into a mini gestapo, killing several innocent people of color.
2
Con men vs Mueller. Mueller will win.
3
I'm sorry, but this is an extremely misleading essay.
Nationally, according to FBI data released in September 2017, homicides increased from 14,164 in 2014, the Year of Ferguson, to 17,250 in 2016.
That was a nearly 22% increase in the two years in which the Black Lives Matter movement was supported by the Administration and the media.
This oped's comparison of the small change in crime rates in Chicago from 2014 to 2015 is a red herring. The honest comparison would be between the 511 homicides in 2015 and the 808 in 2016 (+58%).
The hinge event in Chicago happened in late November 2015 when the the video of the disgraceful shooting of Laquan McDonald by the Chicago Police Department was finally released. The Obama DOJ and the ACLU quickly imposed their will on the CPD, police stops plummeted, and homicides immediately spiked by the winter of 2016.
The Ferguson Effect of BLM victories being followed by more homicides is one of the more obvious in the history of American social science.
13
The people are the big losers when politicians misuse any data as a naked partisan weapon for personal or partisan (which eventually means personal) gain.
And sometimes it's the people who spread that obfuscation or outright lying (think of all the ordinary folks who parrot Trump).
5
Since day one of this administration “facts” have viewed as if trying to look at the moon from the bottom of a swimming pool.
1
What should really ashame and embarrass Americans is not what is illegal in America but what is legal. And politicians have no interest nor motivation to be accurate about real crime.
America has 25 % of the world's prisoners with 5 % of humanity. And 40% of the 2.3 million Americans in prison are black like Ben Carson even though only 13 % of Americans are black. Blacks are persecuted for acting like white people do without any criminal justice consequences.
No American corrupt crony capitalist corporate plutocrat oligarch welfare kings and queens were ever held criminally accountable for their criminal and fraudulent actions before, during and after the great recession of 2008. Instead they got bailed out by Uncle Sam.
No Americans have been held criminally accountable for crimes against humanity including state sponsored ethnic cleansing terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Nor have they been held criminally accountable for kidnapping, torture and indefinite detention.
No American opioid maker nor prescriber has been held criminally liable for increasing opioid addiction and drug overdose deaths.
MAGA?
2
From the mainstream media, including this paper, one would think 99% of violence in America in black on white when
it's really 2%. There are twice as much black on white violence as visa versa. There are 5x more hate crimes
against Jews than Muslims. White on black sexual assault is practially nonexistant but gets more coverage
than the 99% of sexual assault against black women that are committed by black men. You would also think
99% of people shot by the police were black, when it fact more whites are shot than blacks. Sorry
by there is a lot of irony over the NYT lamenting about phony crime stats when they are constantly in search
of violence taht upholds their worldview and ignores the vast majority of violence (including hate crimes against
Jews and Asians) that fails to match up to their narratives.
10
We live in a time when Trump has made lying the raison d'etre of politics and policy. Couple that with the general public's dislike for numerical data and arithmetic and presto! you have crime statistics. We need a radically new approach to civics learning and arithmetic learning. It is almost too much to expect our populace to have even a basic understanding of statistics. Hence crime data is an easy target for con men like Trump and Giuliani.
2
We are surrounded by incessant messages that they're out to get you, the world is extremely dangerous, and be afraid---AFRAID.
We have the paradoxical situation that while the world has become much safer on most counts, the sense of lurking disaster is more prevalent than ever. A main technique for breeding such fear is slippery statistics.
Such deceptive statistics are ubiquitous. We expect lobbies, public service employees, and the media, among others, to hype their statistics. Rather than a sin of commission, ie lying about the number, we have more often a sin of omission, ie using a legitimate but deceptive statistic.
Sadly, deceptive statistics are produced not only by self-serving groups, but also by eminently respectable public agencies. Here's an example.
The Center for Disease Control, CDC, provides widely-quoted statistics on gun deaths. Its most recent figure is about 36,000 gun deaths per year, roughly the same as traffic deaths. This number is then found in many gun control publications and statements.
But, the number is deceptive. Gun control groups focus on murder. When they say "36,000 gun deaths", one rather naturally takes it to mean "36,000 murders by gun". I did, initially.
But, and this is the deception, only about one-third of gun deaths are murder, say 13,000. Two-thirds are suicide, roughly 23,000.
Suicide is a whole separate consideration. It is not to be smuggled into discussions of the prevalence of murder.
7
What Giuliani probably was getting at was that Democratic governance, over decades, plus an intrusive federal presence, have a way of countering the general trend across the country of dropping crimes rates. There was once a time in Chicago when people of all sorts in the wards could earn a little extra scratch by making themselves available to the political bosses during elections, for a few bucks and endless beer, to be shepherded from ward to ward to vote Democratic repeatedly. This became an important source of secondary income to a lot of Chicagoans and tended to keep the lid on. But then the feds stuck their noses in it once Richard Nixon finally was elected president in 1968, in retribution for the 1960 election when Mayor Daley largely stole the presidential election for John F. Kennedy against Nixon. The bosses were forced to take this practice so far underground that it lost its ability to improve the lives of so many, even marginally. Crips and Bloods ensued, and we see these occasional spurts of deadly gang-related violence.
New York City in times past notoriously would explode in gun-violence in its upper reaches as well as venues in Brooklyn before they were so thoroughly gentrified, as the heat in the heart of summer would exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Under de Blasio, of course, the city hasn’t managed to get free health care declared a human right (yet) but he HAS been able to get free air conditioning …
2
… for all declared a right. As a direct consequence, people in Harlem no longer sleep on fire escapes (with their guns) to escape the oppressive heat inside, but gather peacefully in their living rooms over brandy and really good tawny ports to discuss events of the times. As a consequence, those historical NYC riots of 1960s and 1970s summers are a thing of the past. Chicago needs to redirect its funding priorities.
We should note that unlike New York (the State OR the city), which are NOT fiscally unsound while Illinois and Chicago basically are bankrupt but for the fact that they claim they’re not, Chicago is rapidly approaching Venezuela in its inability to effectively police civil disorder, particularly its spikes of gang-related gun-violence. This is all Giuliani was trying to say.
Please take note that in this defense of Giuliani a few deplorable examples of “fake news” may have crept into the apologia. Please tolerate this, as the heart was pure and the ideological objective sound.
6
Guiliani’s heart is pure? It’s amazing how someone’s party affiliation can affect your perceptions of them.
@Richard Luettgen
63 deaths just a little hyperbole by yr hero
Facts on who kills us. Note a Republican gun trend?
Massachusetts and Rhode Island have the lowest rates of gun deaths per 100,000 people of 50 states.
Firearm deaths per 100,000 people:
14. Tennessee 17.0 per 100,000
13. Kentucky 17.5 per 100,000
12. West Virginia 17.5 per 100,000
11. Wyoming 17.5 per 100,000
10. South Carolina 17.7 per 100,000
9. Arkansas 17.7 per 100,000
8. New Mexico 18.2 per 100,000
7. Missouri 18.8 per 100,000
6. Montana 19.0 per 100,000
5. Oklahoma 19.6 per 100,000
4. Mississippi 19.8 per 100,000
3. Louisiana 21.2 per 100,000
2. Alabama 21.4 per 100,000
1. Alaska 23.0 per 100,000 (worst state for gun deaths)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/21/states-most-and-le...
Violent crime has decreased greatly in the past 30 years due to the "mass incarceration" of criminals. While the author is correct that politicians misuse data routinely, it is an undeniable fact that violent and property crime in our inner cities continues to be a scourge on their populations. If Democrats (and Republicans) truly cared about the problem, it would be addressed. They do not - particularly, and most hypocritically, in the major cities whose governments have been strictly Democratic for close to 100 years (Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, Newark to name just a few).
17
One thing I never see mentioned in coverage about violence in Chicago, is that it does not have the highest murder rate in the country. It is not even in the top 10. At #25 it is the largest city with a comparatively high murder rate (although it is 1/3 of the the #1 city, St. Louis). Since it is such a large city this leads to the high number of murders reported.
So while the murder rate in Chicago is too high (any rate above zero is too high), it seems to me that using it as an exemplar is misleading in and of itself.
16
@John Sully
The number of murders per population is one way to measure the problem. But if that is your sole measure all the worst cities will be small with concentrated populations of the poor. Chicago is a place you might actually visit where murders increased by shocking amounts beginning in 2016. The increase in murders in Chicago in 2016 exceeds the total murders in 6 of the 7 most violent cities by your measure. You can play with statistics all kinds of ways. But using several measures is the best way to address any issue.
1
It's hard to get data, when private organizations and republican administrations codify into law from gathering any information whatsoever. (let alone gathering all information that already exists but means nothing in context if it is not taken as a whole)
Science is science
Math is math
Statistics are statistics
Data is data
If it all points to aspects of society that is not working, or more importantly is a danger to us all, then it needs to come to light and used properly to achieve solutions.
4
In sales you learn that if want someone to buy something expensive, you break it down into the smallest units, as in, "that only pennies a day". When you want a small amount to seem large, you aggregate it, as in, "your looking at thousands of dollars a year".
Unfortunately for us, most of our politicians are nothing but salesmen, instead of the statesmen we all wish they would be.
Walter Cronkite never sold us anything - he told it the way it was. Something that is lost in our world of endless false equivalence and moral ambiguity.
23
Insult our intelligence? Are you kidding me? This is exactly what the Repub party has been doing for years - telling us how badly "we" need tax cuts; how terrible the EPA is for protecting our environment from the abuse of regulation, how we need to destroy medicare, medicaid, rid us of the pestilence of Obamacare, on and one, for decades, and viral and vile under trump. If you think this crime against our intelligence is new, you might check the condition of your brain cells. Incredible.
9
Donald Trump ‘loves the uneducated,’ remember? Just one more reason why. And with help from the Republican Party, Fox News, Breitbart, Infowars and other like-minded ‘conservatives,’ they’ll see to it that more and more Americans remain in the dark.
10
I would also like to bring attention to Trump's claim that crime has increased by 30% in Germany since their liberal acceptance of immigrants. This is totally false -- crime has declined in Germany. Politicians who lie should be immediately corrected for their abuse of crime data for political purposes, and the corrections should be as widely reported in the press as the lies were.
5
Why the dearth of violent crime especially murder in poor white Appalachian States? Better policing techniques than Baltimore, Chicago? Cultural reasons?
21
One of the most egregious insults to our intelligence are all the articles decrying mass incarceration which never mention the crimes which result in that incarceration. We are apparently to believe that police arrest and jail innocent young men of color at random rather than in response to criminal acts. As with the transparent conflation of legal with illegal immigration (all are 'migrants'), progressives struggling to win elections should realize that no one is fooled by such obvious sophistry, and that treating people like fools is a poor way to win their votes.
24
@Jeremy Bounce Rumblethud — When drugs were an ‘inner city black problem,’ there was aggressive prosecution and long mandatory jail terms. Now that it’s a white working class scourge, not so much. And if you think a young black kid stopped with a small amount of pot in his pocket will be treated the same way a young white Ivy League college student will, well lad, you’re living in the Breitbart Magic Kingdom.
And here’s another ‘get a clue’ - there ain’t no such thing as getting stopped for ‘walking while white’ or ‘driving while white.’ Those born with a natural, deep dark tan can tell you their experience ain’t remotely similar.
3
@Jeremy Bounce Rumblethud
Sorry to insult your intelligence again, but here's solid data to show that police arrest and jail young men of color disproportionately for the most trivial crime of all -- posession of marijuana. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-blackwhite-ma...
As for the "innocent", the NYT has already reported that the Democrats made a "compromise" with the Republicans to de-criminalize posession of marijuana, but keep the public display of marijuana a crime. As the federal stop-and-frisk court case demonstrated, and the NYT recently reported, cops violated the Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search to arrest (mostly) black men for legal posession anyway.
Unfortunately, treating people like fools is a successful way to win votes.
1
Giuliani is an idiot by choice. A recalcitrant one at that, well deserving of Trump's brutish praise...as long as he doesn't quit 'a la Michael Cohen', and reveal the real liar behind it.
3
No, the politicians are doing what the Clintons, Bush and Obama did--deceiving the undiscerning and low-information voters. And, they are largely successful in this.
That politicians and journalists know this is true is a little-revealed fact.
We have only ourselves to blame.
3
One day in the life of Trump's lies and lying tweets and his clown car full of lying corrupt minions and the complicitly lying GOP, all getting over on the ignorant, no information Trump supporters who are offended by facts and intelligence, makes anything that the Clinton's or anyone else could have ever said falsely in their entire lifetime, even if they spewed lies a dozen times a day from birth until death, wouldn't even scratch the surface to compare. Nice try though, you have some intense sense of irony calling out ANYONE about lying with Trump and his merry band of liars in charge.
3
Thanks for a cogent, substantive, and cleanly written piece on this subject. Would that all our government officials would both refrain from data dredging to suit their own purposes and better learn how to discriminate good data from bad when crafting legislation and policy. It all makes perfect sense, and would result in better government. But alas, I won't be holding my breath waiting for it to happen.
1
At the founding of our nation, the gun homocide rates are believed to be 6 times what they are today. Homocide rates have overall been dropping for well over a century, not just over the last few decades. There is indeed a disconnect between experiences in Republican and Democratic districts. People’s experiences in Republican states are that most gun deaths are from suicide and hunting accidents. In most Democratic districts, gun deaths are from mostly from homocides. Perspective tends to be formed as a result of our experiences. Rural people have positive experiences with guns based on a prevalence of ownership for hunting and sport where as this is not the case in urban areas.
6
What a rarity! A piece in the NYT that actually takes all politicians, which means for Republicans and Democrats, to task to cherry picking data.
Kind of reminds me of a story that made the rounds back when I was getting my MBA. It's pretty old and probably still making the rounds. The president of a company pulled the chief accountant to the side and asked what the profit was the past month. The response was "What do you want it to be?". Which is actually a very accurate and telling response.
Statistics is the same in a certain fashion. I remember one of my Advanced Stat's professors in B-School showing us how you can design a statistical study to deliver the results you want, more or less
When he was a young post-grad working for NASA back in the Apollo days one of his responsibilities was flight and mission risk. When his numbers did not match management's expectations he was told to change the study so the calculated risk was closer to expectations. He ended up quitting in protest.
5
There is a well known, very strong time-lagged correlation between violent crime and lead emissions. This huge effect seems to be consistently ignored. Once we stopped using leaded gasoline and leaded paint, violent crime dropped steadily. Follow-up research shows continued correlation between hot spots of crime and continued lead exposure, often from paint or industrial sources. All this furor over police enforcement vs. economic issues and the like are just missing the main point about lead exposure and violence.
3
@David R I would imagine the same will hold true for the areas now starting to get less coal smoke and thus less mercury poisoning from it. Mercury is at least as bad as lead and that is why there has been major push to convert coal plants to natural gas is the much reduced emissions and very low heavy metal footprint.
This should also give us better mental health and fewer cognitive diseases going forward.
1
@David R
Another abuse of crime statistics is confusing association with causation.
I invite anyone who has taken an introductory statistics course, or even a good science course, to explain how that applies to this example.
Crime statistics rely heavily on what actions public safety officials decide to collect. "Black-on black" crime seems to be a favorite. It was the cornerstone of Mr Giuliani's rationale for his unconstitutional "stop-and-frisk" approach to antagonizing and controlling minorities.
The violence in Chicago is concentrated in two neighborhoods overrun by gangs. Ghettos of any population tend to foster crime.
3
@sosonj
yes, when the NYT tried to find out why the rate of marijuana arrests was so much higher in black precincts, police officials said that it was because they got more 911 conplaints in black precincts.
Even more insulting to the public's intelligence is the media's relentless focus on assault rifle-based mass shootings, which statistically account for less than 0.5% of all gun deaths.
19
If one reads John Ralston Saul it is not difficult to understand why misusing data is a specialty in relaying misinformation. It is not only Americans but a world of people who love data and have not been taught how to understand it. In a world of incredible complexity numbers seem so concrete they have a power that ideas and words cannot match. The GOP is a cult built on the power of meaningless data, low taxes and small government. The USA grows GDP faster than in any other Western developed country. A half century decline in standard of living cannot compete with a reality of a better life for most people on Earth and GDP growth less than half of what it is in the USA.
in 2014 120% of the recovery from 2008 went to the top 1% of the world's population and your President is ecstatic over the 4% growth of GDP even if your average worker has seen his relative economic success fall.
I remember 1964 and the GOP convention when after the Civil Rights Act the GOP declared war on democracy. In 1965 America's workers reached their zenith in terms of share of the economy and 53 years of the best economy the world has ever seen American workers share of America's success has declined precipitously.
4
The whole world should take statistics and probability courses.
FEAR sells FOMO and all the other "FO" memes.
3
Misuse and abuse ? They lie.
1
Substance thoughtful and provocative. Analogy to severe weather events just plain wrong..
How about ' Too Many Politicians Misuse and Abuse the Law'?
1
Many things changed nearly simultaneously that each could/should have an effect on the overall crime rate. I don’t underestimate the likely effects of legalized abortion, better access to birth control, greater surveillance technology, longer sentences, and more effective policing. I suspect they all function together to bring down crime rates in a way that, alone, none of the individual policies/circumstances could.
3
"Concentrated bursts of violence take over the narrative and are exploited for political points."
What issue important to our country isn't exploited in the same irresponsible manner? Or in any Democracy? And how can commentary like this, that assigns equal blame to inaccurate political claims to both parties change anything.
Let's make the punishment equal to the crime here and it is the GOP that pushes hardest to be "tough on crime". This toughness has led increasing the number of Americans serving time in our prisons by 7X in about 40 years, while producing very little bang for the buck in terms of reducing crime (at least not for the last decade). It has produced lots of felons who can no longer vote, which is probably not coincidental and could be thought of as a crime against humanity that has destroyed neighborhoods but helped the GOP win elections.
Democrats who have played along with Republican propaganda do so as a cowardly survival tactic, but if the media emphasizes who is most culpable, maybe the GOP will be sentenced to losing more elections which would force them to moderate their baseless propaganda and ultimately keeping people who don't deserve jail time out of jail.
2
We have to blame New York. Sorry. It's such a ripe media market that, like Hollywood, every other person on the street is engaged in content of some kind.
Without the lights and cameras and reporters, I doubt Donald or Rudy would be so easily blotted or so readily absorbed.
1
What's new here? Politicians and people in general cherry-pick facts and data all the time to try to win arguments. It's the semblance of truth, which skews the bigger perspective, that turns unwitting people into believers.
And if anyone any longer is questioning the notion that Americans are somehow more collectively intelligent than anyone else, one word disputes it: Trump.
The world is a big place and just about everyone with access to a television has made the comparison of Trump's rallies to those of someone else that the NYT is apparently loathe to mention in comparison. Lest what we ask? It all comes true and history repeats?
If people were as intelligent as you say, cherry-picking would no longer be necessary. Yet even when the media corrects falsehoods, a large swath of people still believe the initial statements. It's all about being first to say it, and saying it loudly and repetitively, because repetition is what intelligent people need, right?
That they disrespect democracy is not in question. The whole administration is currently disrespecting what it means to be American!
1
Sadly, telling lies that demonize others in order to motivate your followers and court support from groups like the NRA has become standard Republican procedure, from Trump on down. What they say about Islam, immigrants, Democrats, blacks, crime, climate scientists, teachers, unions, kneeling athletes...it's all the same.
I'm not sure which is worse: if they actually believe it, or if they don't.
4
These politicians, particularly Trump, Guiliani, and Sessions, are playing to their base. These include pro-gun enthusiasts and the ubiquitous NRA and deep-seeded nativism and racism. It is very easy to skew data depending on the demographer's particular ideology and employer. With the three mentioned above, they are all artists when painting their lies as truths.
However, upon reading this opinion piece, I could not but ask myself two questions: Why does racial profiling continue? Under the Trump administration alone, our recent mass murders have involved neither Blacks nor Latinos. On the contrary for the most part they have been unstable white men who should never have had guns in their hands. This leads to the second question, which is rhetorical in view of a national crisis of sorts: Why do we not have stronger regulations? No one is encouraging an overturning of the Second Amendment. But for a so-called democracy to support vigilante attitudes spells the end of civility, law, and order.
5
The truth is that the cause of most crime is caused by young juveniles that are poorly parented, neglected, or have no father in their lives. Females who have children, and are on their own can't parent multiple children, as it matters little whether the children are Asian, black, Hispanic, white, etc. It is just the truth. In fact, if you are on death row, it is more than likely that your mother had you before the age of 21. This is not a condemnation of females, as it is the reality, that it is not good for young, or single females of any race, etc. to have children, when they themselves are just children. Nor is it good to have males fathering multiple children, when they have no job, no way of providing for 6 children they had with multiple females, and to suggest otherwise by any political party, or even feminists is they miss the truth. Academic failure, and crime is high, and there is no use arguing over that truth. as over 50,000 died from drug overdoses last year. Now that statistic should make people get their heads out of the accusing each political side of how much crime there is, as there is still too much death, caused by guns, drug dealing, and drug use. That is truth that any serious leader who really cares, and wants the votes of those living in their city, district, or state, can get behind.
11
"Mr. Eads is a data journalist."
"Yet when politicians cherry-pick isolated events and numbers....[they] create obstacles to evidence-driven discourse."
"When sloppily cherry-picking isolated numbers, they disrespect our intelligence and our democracy."
Mr. Eads, don't you realize that it's 2018, and in Trump's America, quaint old-fashioned notions such as "data," "evidence-driven discourse," "intelligence," and "democracy" no longer matter? That you even deign to mention them demonstrates how much of an out-of-touch elitist you are.
Real Americans don't waste their time thinking about such things (or thinking at all).
2
Rudy plays both sides of the argument: At once declaring that homicides numbers in Chicago are shocking (erroneously blaming Dems) then and congratulates himself (equally erroneous) for declining murder rates in NYC!!! He forgets conveniently that when murders declined across the nation in 1991 it was exactly eighteen years after Rose V. Wade (1973) had removed 40 million adults, who would have been unwanted children, from the mix. He should read the work of Steven Levitt.
3
I share Mr Eads frustration with politicians but he need not look any further than his reporter brethren for their consistent and almost universal lack of understanding of basic statistics. What is most disturbing is that well meaning reporters simply succumb to their personal biases by following headline statistics that happen to suit their desired point of view. Crime is perfect example. "More whites are killed by police than Blacks" - true but - but whites at 5.5x the population of Blacks, Blacks are far more likely to be a victim of death by police. The reverse statistic has also been used "Whites commit more murders than Blacks" - similarly True in the absolute and wrong when one looks from the perspective of % of blacks in US. At the core literal innumeracy but the public, by politicians and by the supposed watch keepers of the press distorts and fails people constantly. Media companies like the Nytimes should require editorial review of all that is published through a Stats editor, trained, skeptical and with no less authority than Williams grad that correct grammar and spelling.
5
Can we not generalize and engage in false equivalency? Misrepresenting or flat-out lying about crime has become the Republican stock in trade. Scientists say that fear is the #1 political motivator for voters. Well, Republicans and FOX news work from an "all fear all the time" script. It is worth noting that we live in the safest time in two generations in America. But you wouldn't know it to listen to the Republicans or FOX News.
5
Chicago murders are a direct result of lack of gun control, and geometrically increased numbers of gun purchases, by right wing ideologues, mental health deviants, those who would like to see the federal government collapse. It is related to Republican association with the National Rifle Association, and its large donation to Republican political campaigns, and efforts to avoid any kind of gun control, no matter how reasonable. Also, the propaganda that Democrats will "take all your guns," which has never been true, as much as I'D like to see that happen. Assistant Liar, Rudi Guiliani probably needs a family intervention, that is, if any of his family actually care what happens to him, now. What a wacky, embarrassing crackpot.
2
@ChesBay Chicago has some of the tightest gun control in the country and one of the highest rates of violent crime. Rural states with little to no gun control have low crime rates. Blaming Chicago violence on guns coming from neighboring states would only make sense if those neighbors had similar levels of violence,which they do not.
Logic is our friend.
3
One street informant could tell you when something big is going down.
"Tell your statistics to shut up!" - Lucy to Charlie Brown
I don’t believe it’s cherry picking. It’s deliberate distortion of facts and information by those who want to demonize others. Giuliani knows full well what the facts are regarding crime. And as Socrates, below, points out that the real death dealing states are all red ones. Blood red.
2
@Jim LoMonaco Yet most homocides take place in Democratic cities and districts, where as shootings are majority suicide and accidental in Republican districts.
8
Perhaps if you grow up in Chicago you just get used to the
shootings and murders but let us think about this past weekend.
66 people shot with 12 murdered and who knows how many others left crippled for life.
That comes out to 22 per day shot and 4 per day killed.
That is 8,030 shot per year and 1,460 killed per year if
it happened every day, but since it is only the weekends and when it is hot in Chicago we can live with it - ?!?
That is worse then what went on for the US Army in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
The reality is that most of the people being shot and killed
are poor and they are minorities.
Do you think New York Politicians would not take action if
this were happening on the posher parts of Manhattan
or Congressmen were being shot on Capital Hill.
The New York Times and Liberals go on and on about -
"Racist" talk, micro-agressions, not feeling welcomed -
and then try to cover up the most blatant disregard for
the lives of the Inner-City Minority Poor who are caught in a
an ongoing War.
Declare Martial Law.
Search every house, automobile, person for guns and ammo.
Flood the streets with police and do 'Search and Frisk'.
Until you end this War upon the Poor.
7
@John Brown
I am a democratic socialist and spent 7 years living in Woodlawn before moving to Red America and then to Montreal.
I grew up in Montreal and knew what free speech was. Free speech in America is contextual. On the South Side of Chicago free speech is contextual and being a Canadian free speech for someone unafraid to share ideas is available but after dark many of the freedoms of Montreal were not there. I could no longer leave the house at 9PM and return at 4 AM.
In Red America I had no right to free speech it was a very dangerous activity but if I got up and walked around at four AM I knew I was relatively safe and after a couple of weeks of being stopped by the police and asked what I was doing and explaining I don't watch television and never ever learned how to live by a clock I never again found my walks interrupted even though my conversations were always mutually enjoyable.
My friends who travelled in Afghanistan before Bush's CIA sent in Osama tell me it was one of the safest places they had ever been.
In is all about context and that is thing we most often forget, context is the job of citizens and when you elect criminals you get a context where only criminals thrive.
Toronto is larger than Chicago and was one of the safest cities in the world , it elected Rob Ford Mayor and cannot understand where the violence came from.
You elected Trump and I fear for my Chicago children and grandchildren even as they live on the safe Northside.
2
@Memphrie et Moi
I did not elect Trump,
I did not vote for him.
I would rather have Bernie.
Either way the killings go on and on and on
and commentators blame everyone when
we know who has blood on their hands.
@John Brown
Perhaps it is just me
perhaps because it is 106 degrees
here in Idaho,
but I do think my initial comment deserves
a NYT Pick
as it offers the only practical solution to
ending the endless murders.
3
Not just crime data. Politicians (and bloggers, publicists, and journalists) misuse and abuse all sorts of data.
1
We aren't to think this say-anything-regardless-of-truth-facts-or -reality is without a plan to destroy all faith in reporting, are we?
And guess which party would BENEFIT from that?
2
Politicians, and specifically right wing politicians, think we're stupid enough to elect someone as ludicrous as Donald Trump to national office. Oh wait......
4
In early reporting in the NY Times on the weekend Chicago violence, all of the victims, and apparently the shooters, belonged to one racial group, according to the Times. As the huge number of shots fired and people injured and killed became clear, the Times fell silent as to the race(s) of the shooters and the victims.
Guns, legal and illegal are presumably equally available to all groups in Chicago, but the gun violence is apparently primarily limited to one group.
But the Times wants to cherrypick the facts we get to read. What we are supposed to read and think is perhaps indicated by the latest addition to the editorial board, and what we are permitted to say about that pick.
We are not going to solve this nation's very real problems if we are only willing to look at some of the facts.
23
Irony that it is the NRA and the Republicans, subsidiaries of the Kremlin (just ask Nunes), that fully support the gun rights of the criminals in Chicago. Maybe we need to remind Giuliani that 9/11 happened on his watch, and therefore deserves the blame for the murder spike on that day in 2001. Isn't that the logic he is using?
"When sloppily cherry-picking isolated numbers, they disrespect our intelligence and our democracy." Actually, it is not sloppily done on their part. It is wholly intentional and THAT is what makes it so disrespectful and insulting to our intelligence - unless you are part of the base, of course, where they barely understand simplistic answers that keep misleading them.
The same can be said of trump and his spokes-boobs on TV. Indeed, there is absolutely nothing to be learned or gained from interviewing , debating them or asking them their so called "expert" opinion - they already have a platform for their narratives on FOX news and InfoWars. We need to quarantine them there.
The "national crime wave" does exist, it's real and it is skyrocketing as it is actively being perpetrated by trump and his ilk in his cabinet of thieves and insiders and Republicans on the Hill and states around the country. Imagine if Mueller had Compstat to pursue his investigations on these people and politicians messing with our country!
Now if only we could get the truth on the economy and deficit financed tax cuts since Reagan ...
13
Great article. Should be required reading for journalists as well as voters. Thanks.
5
I have no love for Democrats, but I believe that our only salvation from this long national nightmare is to vote every Republican out of office. We can sift through the Democrats later.
10
@John
Sanders wasn't taken out by a Republican. When Democratic Party is the only party expect a Stalin at its head because he/her is the only type that will climb to the top under that environment.
The politicians in either the current GOP, the Trump GOP and the Democrats are all guilty of cherry picking the data.
However, lately I see more cherry picking that supports either themselves or Trump to present a grand view of their "initiatives" that in reality does not exist.
Perhaps if the politicians were held to a high standard such as presenting their point with at least three sources cited and a proper theory tested using hypothesis, rather than flinging a substance at a wall to see what sticks then use that as a talking point, many of us may find their statements more believable.
But, in the age of Trump and the numerous lies he tells, and gets a pass on, we will never hear the truth from many of our politicians again.
Welcome to BSland.
2
The lack of basic understanding of science and technology, including statistical analysis, among political leaders is a travesty. They are able to cherry-pick statistics and studies instead of looking at aggregates. I'm not entirely sure how to fix it--except maybe educating the public more. The fundamental "correlation does not equal causation" should be known to everyone. The idea of margins of error and confounding variables should be known to everyone. This is why science education is important.
27
Below are the 14 states with the highest rate of gun deaths out of the 50 states: the worst states are Alaska, Alabama and Louisiana; almost all of these states are rural, religious, Republican shooting galleries.
While Chicago obviously has a poverty and a gun problem (made notably worse by nearby Indiana's Guns R Us laws), Illinois has 11.6 firearm deaths per 100,000 people, which places the state in the safest third of the nation, and Illinois is notably safer than the mostly Republican states listed below.
Massachusetts and Rhode Island have the lowest rates of gun deaths per 100,000 people of 50 states.
Firearm deaths per 100,000 people:
14. Tennessee 17.0 per 100,000
13. Kentucky 17.5 per 100,000
12. West Virginia 17.5 per 100,000
11. Wyoming 17.5 per 100,000
10. South Carolina 17.7 per 100,000
9. Arkansas 17.7 per 100,000
8. New Mexico 18.2 per 100,000
7. Missouri 18.8 per 100,000
6. Montana 19.0 per 100,000
5. Oklahoma 19.6 per 100,000
4. Mississippi 19.8 per 100,000
3. Louisiana 21.2 per 100,000
2. Alabama 21.4 per 100,000
1. Alaska 23.0 per 100,000 (worst state for gun deaths)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/21/states-most-and-le...
If you want to increase your chances of getting killed by a gun, go hang out in Republistan, where the ruling Party of Death will be happy to see you drop dead with plenty of 'thoughts and prayers'.
Up Is Down: Down Is Up: GOP 2018
Nice GOPeople
78
@Socrates
Those numbers mean very little to the thesis in the article as they include suicides, accidents, self-defence killings among others.
The data we would want is the rate of gun-murder per 100,000 and the actual data paints a radically different picture that the USA Today article.
The leaders include the usual suspects: Delaware DC LA MI Missouri and no - NOT Alaska
32
@Socrates I had a couple of thoughts here: 1) you are assuming that gun deaths are spread out evenly across the states. This is not true. For example, certain police districts in Chicago have homicide rate's (excluding suicides) of over 35/100,000 residents 2) the numbers that you present above include suicides. For example, for Alaska, when you look at the homicide rate less suicides , is more around 7/100,000. Chicago has a much higher rate than Alaska, limited to a very small area of the city. Obviously, the solutions that might reduce the suicide rate are much different than solutions for inner city gang violence.
9
Liked your comment, but would be interesting to know the breakdown of gun deaths— were they homicides, suicide or an accident?
Giuliani and Trump take the lead
Observing the facts they don't heed,
,Perversion, diversion,
Or data inversion,
Exaggeration's what they need.
21
Mr Eads hides the problem of murder in Chicago by not comparing its homicide rate (homicides per 100,000 people per year) with the national rate and other large cities such as NYC and LA. These comparisons are essential in determining how well Chicago handles its homicide rate today, while comparisons with about 30 years ago are not as helpful.
11
Cherry-picking data is not limited to politicians. It abounds in corporate boardrooms, eleemosynary organizations, top-notch educational organizations, the healthcare industry and in the media.
It's just a part of our human nature.
4
@Enarco
Doctors diagnosing an illness try to avoid cherrypicking data. Investigators of airplane crashes do not cherrypick. Cherrypicking comes when people are competing to sell something, often themselves. Our nature includes both representing reality accurately and misrepresenting reality; which one prevails depends on what is rewarded and what is punished.
Misrepresenting reality, making something seem better than it is, is at the heart of advertising and selling. Representing it accurately is at the heart of science and engineering. We get advertised at constantly, and we acclimate ourselves to it and distrust those who are not trying to sell us something (what, then, are they up to?).
2
@Enarco In my previous employment with the Federal government and later for a fortune 500 company, any fudging of the data, that is cherry picking, was prohibited. Any and all statements, any and all facts needed citations to support the material. All recommendations needed to be tested using analysis of alternatives with at least three different outcomes with valid data to support the conclusions.
I'll not discuss your comments as each corporate or government entity has differing standards, or no standards, as exhibited by Trump and his henchmen in the cabinet, and to a certain extent those who were elected before him.
So, it is up to us to glean the facts and separate the fiction. With Trump that is easy-everything he says is suspect.
3
Would that the cherry-picking and, ultimately, the corruption of our capacity to address significant social tragedies, be limited to crime data. This administration has made a consistent practice of disseminating data on immigration, taxes and a host of other topics utilizing this same approach.
That said, one might wonder why anyone would take seriously the comments of Mr. Giuliani.
28
@peterV
He did cleaned up the nicer part of New York and those area are indeed far safer than similar area in other large cities.
2
To paraphrase a line from David Simon, “Nobody ever lost a race by being tough on crime.”
It’s a meaningless thing to commit to, and it evokes different ideas depending on an individual’s broader set of policy views. It would be a welcome thing to see politicians offering up more substance and less statistics, the latter of which is incredibly muddied by any number of contextual factors.
Our system of criminal justice is already incredibly unjust, and effectively operates in violation of numerous Constitutional guarantees.
8
People like Giuliani, Trump and Sessions aren't interested in honesty; they want to hit people at a visceral level with fear. Whether it's about homegrown violence or (supposed) criminality from immigrants and refugees, the message is the same: you need us to keep you safe.
President Obama took on Trump's fearmongering with statistics. Obama had truth on his side. But Trump's message hit harder. People don't think right when they are scared.
Numbers aren't enough to win the war of perception. Maybe we need to make seeing believing, and, along with facts, show images of people in Chicago and elsewhere just enjoying life safely. The visual drives home more than the cerebral.
40
You’ve really landed on something there. From what I understand of neuroscience, a strong emotion influences a person much more intensely than rational thought. Someone put it: “the prefrontal cortex gets tired - but the amygdala never does!”
2
@NM
Numbers also say Obama is the most war mongering president in US history both in length the country stayed in war and number of wars started. You really think the "numbers" left-leaning outlets feed you are real and not cherry picked?
Always go to the source and not take "conclusion" as facts.
1