[sheriff]

Originally Posted by olecapt

They are imprecise and overly broad. They are a lot better than nothing. In general the green areas are multiple times safer than the red ones. Worst to best is over an order of magnitude.

The real rub is the broadness. The areas are too big and the statistics too limited. 89102 for instance contains both troubled areas and some of the best housing in Las Vegas.

The crime map is based on the site cited as well as the other two Police Dept web Maps. It is simply a snap shot in time of the overall city. Unfortunately the "time" is different for the three sites. But still these numbers have huge spreads. Hard to be very wrong.

In the highly unlikely case you snagged a client that wanted to buy in Rancho Bel Air, or LVCC, would you provide him with nearby statistics on Bonanza, or Sierra Vista, in an attempt to divert him due to zip code?

[sheriff]

One can only wonder how your crime/zip map correlates to; average net worth/zip, racial makeup/zip, average tax assement/zip, and political affiliation/zip?

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by sheriff

In the highly unlikely case you snagged a client that wanted to buy in Rancho Bel Air, or LVCC, would you provide him with nearby statistics on Bonanza, or Sierra Vista, in an attempt to divert him due to zip code?

No Sheriff I would not consider diverting them. I have done business in LVCC. I certainly would warn anyone of the risk of the surrounding area. I might have to do it by redirection as there are some things a Realtor can't say. But I would certainly point out to them the Metro site which is the right way to explore that question.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by sheriff

One can only wonder how your crime/zip map correlates to; average net worth/zip, racial makeup/zip, average tax assement/zip, and political affiliation/zip?

The correlation to average Income is very high. I actually have a map that shows it...but I have not published it...and may not. I may well however publish a map of the top 25% of zip codes by househod income. .

I know of no correlation to racial makeup. Even the bad neighborhoods here are pretty diverse.

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by olecapt

They are imprecise and overly broad. They are a lot better than nothing. In general the green areas are multiple times safer than the red ones. Worst to best is over an order of magnitude.

The real rub is the broadness. The areas are too big and the statistics too limited. 89102 for instance contains both troubled areas and some of the best housing in Las Vegas.

The crime map is based on the site cited as well as the other two Police Dept web Maps. It is simply a snap shot in time of the overall city. Unfortunately the "time" is different for the three sites. But still these numbers have huge spreads. Hard to be very wrong.

The problem is that a majority of crime doesn't happen to random people. In the vast majority of murders, for example, the perpetrator(s) and victim knew each other. A very large percentage is drug-related or domestic in nature. An area could have a high crime rate per capita, but be completely safe for Joe Schmoe, who wants to move to the area. The statistics we need to have in order to tell Joe Schmoe how likely he is to be safe in a given location often just do not exist. What do we need to know? Well, for starters, what crimes were committed, what percentage of those were violent (for example, a number of sexual crimes, including activities listed as rape, are not actually violent crimes, but you're just going to see them as rape stats, not a further breakdown), what relationship and history the victim and perpetrator may have had (often this is unknown outside of a close circle of people who knew them, and maybe not even then), just what the victims may have been doing, whether there are certain types of people (ages, ethnicities, vocations, etc.) who are more at risk, etc.

[sheriff]

Originally Posted by olecapt

No Sheriff I would not consider diverting them. I have done business in LVCC. I certainly would warn anyone of the risk of the surrounding area. I might have to do it by redirection as there are some things a Realtor can't say. But I would certainly point out to them the Metro site which is the right way to explore that question.

Right, Kerkorian, Boyd and Adelson must also have viewed the LVCC as a crime-ridden security risk as your crime map would indicate.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by sheriff

Right, Kerkorian, Boyd and Adelson must also have viewed the LVCC as a crime-ridden security risk as your crime map would indicate.

Sorry but that is the data from Metro. They publish it by zip code. If you don't like the data take it up with metro.

I would also point out that the strip has very high crime numbers. That is simply fact and likely driven by the large number of tourists. It does not indicate that the Strip Casinos are unsafe.

All comparisons need to be handled with some understanding of the numbers.

[desertsun41]

Originally Posted by DessertRat

The problem is that a majority of crime doesn't happen to random people. In the vast majority of murders, for example, the perpetrator(s) and victim knew each other. A very large percentage is drug-related or domestic in nature. An area could have a high crime rate per capita, but be completely safe for Joe Schmoe, who wants to move to the area. The statistics we need to have in order to tell Joe Schmoe how likely he is to be safe in a given location often just do not exist. What do we need to know? Well, for starters, what crimes were committed, what percentage of those were violent (for example, a number of sexual crimes, including activities listed as rape, are not actually violent crimes, but you're just going to see them as rape stats, not a further breakdown), what relationship and history the victim and perpetrator may have had (often this is unknown outside of a close circle of people who knew them, and maybe not even then), just what the victims may have been doing, whether there are certain types of people (ages, ethnicities, vocations, etc.) who are more at risk, etc.

You have a good point about something. Many of the pesty crimes in my area are domestic in nature. When I check the Metro crime site for my area there seems to be a lot of various crime icons. But if you look at them closer, many are family feuds, recovered stolen vehicle (not a crime), fight, juvenile disturbance and petty junk like that. Nothing to be scared about.

Nevertheless I dont feel safe anymore walking the dog at night. I carry a legal weapon and keep a distance from approaching cars. Once I was walking the dog and a car pulled up to me, stopped, and 4 punks got out each with what looked like an ozzi machine gun. I thought it was my last seconds. They proceeded to open fire on me with pink slimy paint balls. Ruined my expensive jacket. Only one paint ball hit the dog. About 20 hit me. I ran the one block home and got into my truck and caught up with them. They were bombing an old lady who I think was taking out her garbage cans. They saw me pull behind them and burned out. I chased them till the speeds got way over what I will admit here. I tried to PIT them but they obviously had no fear and just went faster.

I called 911 but they just laughed. The cops here are much too busy to respond to nonsense like that. It was opening day for Dunkin Donuts you know.

Even though there has never been any violent crime near me I still am afraid to go outside at night. I am in Sunrise Mtn. area which I think olecapts map showed red.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by DessertRat

The problem is that a majority of crime doesn't happen to random people. In the vast majority of murders, for example, the perpetrator(s) and victim knew each other. A very large percentage is drug-related or domestic in nature. An area could have a high crime rate per capita, but be completely safe for Joe Schmoe, who wants to move to the area. The statistics we need to have in order to tell Joe Schmoe how likely he is to be safe in a given location often just do not exist. What do we need to know? Well, for starters, what crimes were committed, what percentage of those were violent (for example, a number of sexual crimes, including activities listed as rape, are not actually violent crimes, but you're just going to see them as rape stats, not a further breakdown), what relationship and history the victim and perpetrator may have had (often this is unknown outside of a close circle of people who knew them, and maybe not even then), just what the victims may have been doing, whether there are certain types of people (ages, ethnicities, vocations, etc.) who are more at risk, etc.

In general the crime which tend to involve strangers tracks the overall number. Robberies for example.

I would also point out that incidence count tends to be driven by nuisance crime...Violent crime is a smaller number. I think incidence are a much more valid indicator of the "livability" of a neighborhood than violent crime rate. They do track to a very high degree.

So for the purpose of the hassle level the incidence statistic is probably a good indicator.

What I would really like is the police calls in a zip (or better a census tract) with means to remove such things as accidents and health calls.

Violent crime might be an interesting category but is too badly reported to be used. There are for instance no homicides in Metro...and there is no sex crime or rape category.

I do however have reasonable data on burglaries and car thefts which should be up today. I could I suppose do narcotics which would probably give a feel for where the drug activity lies. Robbery would be the other indicator of non-acquaintance crime.

[DessertRat]

We can't assume that robberies involve strangers only. They do not, and a lot of different things get lumped under "robbery". We also can't assume that regardless of one's demographics, one is equally likely to be robbed. The statistics just do not report what we need them to report to actually give a likelihood of being unsafe.

However, I can certainly understand that regardless of this, some people just do not _feel_ safe in some areas, as you mention in the other post. If someone doesn't feel safe somewhere, then by all means they shouldn't live there if they can avoid it. A person really needs to spend some time in a place to know if they'll feel that way, though . . . unless of course they get caught up in hype about how "bad" a particular location is.