Seattlest: Seattle's Crime Rate...Wait -- Nicole Brodeur's Single?

James Callan

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:34:05 -0800

The book that sparked my comment yesterday: 2000's The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things.

Michael van Baker

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:20:33 -0800

Hey, that's perceptive, TroyJMorris. I was turning over the question of how these numbers were sliced statistically, and wondering if there was another way of looking at them. And so there is, as you point out -- the absolute number of crimes, as opposed to a per capita rate.

TroyJMorris

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:13:46 -0800

And what I mean by that is, the number of crimes has risen, but the percentage per 1,000 people has decreased. We still hear about lots of crime, but forget we're being told with more people around us than we were 20 years ago... even 40 years ago.

TroyJMorris

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:10:34 -0800

You think it has to do with our population boom? Hrmmmmmm?

Michael van Baker

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:11:41 -0800

That's one side of it, I think, James. The fewer incidents, the more "countable" they are, rather than becoming "life in the big city" background noise. But, stay tuned for Jeremy's upcoming post, which examines that "why does it seem less safe?" topic.

James Callan

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:55:27 -0800

That's a pretty common phenomenon, isn't it? And not just with crime rates -- the safer things get, the more people freak out about edge cases and the incidents that do happen.