Nassau County residents: who do you hope wins the Suozzi-Mangano recount? (Union: crime, felony)

[pdcnret]

Originally Posted by WJFM

Crime reporting is fudged. I am pretty sure the stabbing in Garden city will be swept under the carpet so the place can report a stellar crime statistic in the FBI records.. If a stabbing a week is low crime, I cannot imagine how high crime must have been before.

FBI crime statistics are not based on raw numbers. The commonly quoted crime statistics are based on occurrences within category per capita (usually 100,000 if I remember correctly.) Although we may have drastically greater numbers of individual crimes than Podunk, Iowa, we have a significantly larger population and therefore a lower crime "rate."

Crime reporting in Nassau is substantially accurate. There is no need to cook the books.

[Jdawg8181]

Who ended up winning? Inquiring minds want to know!

[hotkarl]

Nobody has technically won yet. Suozzi is up by a few hundred votes.
There is already talk of a recount. They are still counting the absentee ballots.
This will drag on for a while ala Bush vs. Gore. I think both will be too stubborn to accept defeat whichever way it leans...

[WJFM]

Statistics can be fudged as well. If there are 19 murders in Nassau in one year, and the population is 2 million, and they count only crimes per 100,000. does that come out to 0 if they throw of the decimal point?

If crime reporting is accurate, do you agree that New Cassel has lesser crime that Garden city?Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed

Originally Posted by pdcnret

FBI crime statistics are not based on raw numbers. The commonly quoted crime statistics are based on occurrences within category per capita (usually 100,000 if I remember correctly.) Although we may have drastically greater numbers of individual crimes than Podunk, Iowa, we have a significantly larger population and therefore a lower crime "rate."

Crime reporting in Nassau is substantially accurate. There is no need to cook the books.

[azzurrony]

Yes, because we know that the Nassau County statistics have alway been accurate and never skewed.

Numbers Mess at the Nassau Police Dept. - The New York Times

Look, I have the upmost respect for our men and women in the police force, but we are kidding ourselves if we don't think the numbers get skewed sometimes. There is certainly a great deal of incentive for the brass to report improvements in crime rates because that helps justify some of these contracts.

No one is saying that Nassau County is unsafe, but there certainly are pockets of the county that are getting worse. Frankly, the one stabbing murder a week we've seen lately is not acceptable to me. Nor, is the increased presence of street gangs over the last 15 years. We should strive for better.

[pdcnret]

[quote=WJFM;11492922]Statistics can be fudged as well. If there are 19 murders in Nassau in one year, and the population is 2 million, and they count only crimes per 100,000. does that come out to 0 if they throw of the decimal point?

If crime reporting is accurate, do you agree that New Cassel has lesser crime that Garden city?Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed

There is a simple explanation. Garden City, which has its own police department, tracks and reports its own crimes. Those numbers are additionally reported to the Nassau County Police for a total county crime report. New Cassel, on the other hand, is an unincorporated hamlet in Nassau County and its crime statistics are mixed in with the rest of the county. I have no idea where Sperling got its crime statistics for New Cassel.

Another thing to keep in mind is that tracking crime rates depends on citizens reporting crimes. They are more apt to report crime in Garden City than in New Cassel. (This obviously doesn't apply to homicide, but may apply to robbery, rape and other serious felonies.)

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by fopt65

Does it really make a difference?

Without MAJOR wholesale changes to govt union contracts, consolidation of services, reduction in the number of administrators in school districts, and getting some real businesses to set up shop in Nassau, changing Supervisors will be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I voted against all incumbents.

Reason being, things are going bad around here and it is painfully obvious that the Republicrats (face it, there is not much difference between the two major parties these days when it comes to how they treat their constituents as we always come last) of LI and NY as a whole do not care about the PEOPLE they are supposed to represent and will throw us under the bus in a second and take actions against OUR interests if it will favor one of their deep pockets pals, such as corporations that send considerable money their way. So what is going on here? We are not a Democracy (for the PEOPLE) anymore. We are a Corpocracy (for the CORPORATIONS).

We need to take our government back. And that means letting the Republicrats KNOW that we will not sit back passively while they feast at the trough of public service for years and years as incumbents. If they know they are likely to be 1 term UNLESS they actually DO SOMETHING for their constituents instead of use their office as a personal power and money machine they might be more likely to do the right thing for the people they represent. (Note I say might because to me it seems a lot of politicians have a sociopathic mindset and they may not "get it" too quickly.) The things you mentioned that need to be done (bolded above) cannot get accomplished unless we actually have incumbents who care.

So rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by not allowing anyone to be an incumbent until there is a politician that actually deserves to be an incumbent does make sense.

[pdcnret]

Originally Posted by azzurrony

Yes, because we know that the Nassau County statistics have alway been accurate and never skewed.

Numbers Mess at the Nassau Police Dept. - The New York Times

Look, I have the upmost respect for our men and women in the police force, but we are kidding ourselves if we don't think the numbers get skewed sometimes. There is certainly a great deal of incentive for the brass to report improvements in crime rates because that helps justify some of these contracts.

No one is saying that Nassau County is unsafe, but there certainly are pockets of the county that are getting worse. Frankly, the one stabbing murder a week we've seen lately is not acceptable to me. Nor, is the increased presence of street gangs over the last 15 years. We should strive for better.

The article only points out that 7 years ago there was a problematic reporting mechanism for crime. There is no allegation that the numbers are being purposely skewed or misrepresented. And they aren't. The process of classification is not as simple as it sounds because many initially reported crimes are ultimately determined (legitimately) to be something else. For instance, how many people misuse the term "robbery" because they don't know the legal difference between robbery, burglary and larceny.

And regarding your discomfort with the recent murders, you should be aware that of all crimes, homicide is the most difficult to prevent. In other words, given the numbers and types of homicides Nassau experiences, there isn't a whole lot anyone can do to reduce them.

[azzurrony]

Pdcnret

With all due respect, the union president essentially said the brass was fudging numbers to make Nassau politicians look better. The point was that we cannot completely trust the numbers to give us an accurate picture of what is going on.

Besides, I think county numbers are too broad to draw an accurate picture of the situation. I think we need (even though we don't have) numbers from various sections of Nassau County to see where the real problems are arising.

-------------------------------

The union president also accused ''the police hierarchy'' of altering numbers so political leaders could point to statistics showing a drop in crime. ''We've known for years that they have skewed the numbers to make the politicians look good,'' Officer DelaRaba said.
For example, he said, if numerous crimes were committed at one scene, the police officer's on-the-scene report would be altered by higher-ups in the final report to reflect only one crime. ''If a number of felonies were committed, they would report only one felony,'' Officer DelaRaba said. ''If there were a burglary and an assault, they would report only the burglary.''

[I_Love_LI_but]

There is no one, approved way to gather, figure out, and report statistics. Most of us learned math in absolutes (1+1 = 2, and so forth) and many of us think it is an absolute science and the results are always concrete with one answer. Not so!

Here's a common way to describe how statistics can be skewed to favor one POV vs. another that maybe some of you can relate to:

Have you ever worked for a big accounting firm that handles taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals? I have. There's this little thing called GAAP accounting policies. The beauty of it is there are so many different ways to report and figure out your income. When I worked in this field, I routinely saw corporations' and wealthy individuals' balance sheets set just so ... the debits equalled out to the credits in the end ... and they didn't have to pay any income tax because it looked like there was no profit. If they had figured out their numbers in a different yet equally acceptable way, they could have owed taxes for the same year. It's pretty common for corporations who are doing well to pay no taxes thanks to GAAP flexibility:

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes | U.S. | Reuters

So one person's "fudging" of crime statistics could be another person's reasonable way of figuring them out.