glbedd53 wrote:I believe that most of these violence stats have to do with guns being innocently dropped and they always fire when dropped.
"The index is based on five primary indicators: (1) number of homicides per 100,000 people, (2) number of violent crimes per 100,000 people, (3) number of people in jail per 100,000 people, (4) number of police officers per 100,000 people and (5) general availability of small arms."
(1) number of homicides per 100,000 people: good indicator of violence in a population because it measures violence in the population.
(2) number of violent crimes per 100,000 people: good indicator of violence in a population because it measures violence in the population.
(3) number of people in jail per 100,000 people: poor indicator of violence in a population because it indirectly measures police enforcement.
A) It doesn't separate violent from non-violent crime.
B) It is a better indicator of police aggressiveness in getting criminals off the street and actually penalizes those cities with high enforcement and bolsters those areas with poor or corrupt policing.
C) It duplicates the second criteria.
(4) number of police officers per 100,000 people: poor indicator of violence because it indirectly measures administrative allocation of resources.
A) It does not take into account the area's police needs and compare it to the police presence to see if they are undermanned, appropriately manned, or overmanned
B) It is a better indicator of a region's aggressiveness in policing. If low rates of police to citizen ratios are interpreted as being peaceful, it actually penalizes those cities with high enforcement and bolsters those areas with little or corrupt policing. Alternatively, if high ratios are considered beneficial, it penalizes those areas with low crime rates that do not need high enforcement.
(5) general availability of small arms: poor indicator of violence because it does not measure any violence.
A) It does not take into account what those arms are used for.
B) It does not take into account who those arms are used by.
C) It duplicates the actual stats of crimes committed with firearms which are included in criteria 1 and 2.
A much better indicator of an area's level of violence might include:
-Number of violent crimes reported/committed per capita
-Number of violent crimes prosecuted/convicted per capita
-Percentage of overall crimes that are considered violent
-Percentage of overall crimes perpetrated by the area's governmental, legislative, elected, and safety personnel/officials
-Subjective poll on the free movement of people and their feelings of safety
-Presence of known and identified criminal organizations in the area