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Old 10-23-2015, 05:52 PM
 
7,132 posts, read 9,141,983 times
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If you have a higher population, that means the crime numbers are obviously going to be higher. That's why using per capita normalizes it....I thought everyone knew this.

LA has more crime in raw numbers, but that's because the population is nearly 7 times more.

Jhenma is right. If anything, it's worse for Seattle because that means on a per capita basis, crime is even more focused in a smaller area than LA which is much bigger in city limits. This means anyone who is spending time in Seattle's city limits has a higher chance of being a victim of violent crime than in L.A because of not only per capita numbers, but because of crime per square mile.
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Old 10-23-2015, 06:31 PM
 
1,687 posts, read 1,439,295 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by waronxmas View Post
Yet it doesn't, it just provides a measurable context to the numbers.

For example, using the 2012 data, had an average of 603.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents while Los Angeles had a rate of 490.7 per 100,000 residents. While on the surface one might say that someoneis more likely to be involved in a violent crime in Seattle, crime often doesn't work that way. Rather, it is usually limited a few specific areas or circumstances.

Given the differences in population size and city area, big cities with small boundaries and populations less than a million usually end up looking "worse" on these rankings than cities with larger populations because there are less people to dilute the number. This is why I look at it this way:

Number of violent crimes in Seattle in 2012: 3618
Number of violent crimes in Los Angeles in 2012: 19110

Yeah, Seattle is "more dangerous" than Los Angeles.
Per capita doesn't matter? Yea right. LA maybe far larger in population and land area, but that also means it will have more poor people and more poor neighborhoods. I've been to some "scary" parts of LA, and it's pretty normal to me. The people are poor, but it doesnt feel dangerous.

You must think NYC is dangerous as hell too.

You sound like another guy who wants to justify how dangerous LA is. This isnt the 90s. If LA is safer with the stats, that's what it is.

I'll take the word of the FBI over yours.

Last edited by Freddy K; 10-23-2015 at 06:40 PM..
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Old 10-23-2015, 06:39 PM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
36,660 posts, read 67,557,504 times
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Well, just goes to show that crime rates, while important, are not( and should not be) the defining characteristic of any large city, especially a city like Seattle that has a ton of great things going on.
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Old 10-23-2015, 07:10 PM
 
Location: LoS ScAnDaLoUs KiLLa CaLI
1,227 posts, read 1,595,503 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by waronxmas View Post
Given the differences in population size and city area, big cities with small boundaries and populations less than a million usually end up looking "worse" on these rankings than cities with larger populations because there are less people to dilute the number. This is why I look at it this way:
Wait what? Isn't that how a "crime rate" works?

Quote:
An offense rate, or crime rate, defined as the number of offenses per 100,000 population, is derived by first dividing a jurisdiction's population by 100,000 and then dividing the number of offenses by the resulting figure
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/data/crim...sionmaking.doc

That's what a "rate" is.
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Old 10-23-2015, 07:59 PM
 
Location: where the good looking people are
3,814 posts, read 4,014,088 times
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LA is a very safe city. It is really not violent (for the most part) like Chicago, SF, and other lesser cities.
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Old 10-24-2015, 12:50 AM
 
213 posts, read 278,474 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by waronxmas View Post
Yet it doesn't, it just provides a measurable context to the numbers.

For example, using the 2012 data, had an average of 603.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents while Los Angeles had a rate of 490.7 per 100,000 residents. While on the surface one might say that someoneis more likely to be involved in a violent crime in Seattle, crime often doesn't work that way. Rather, it is usually limited a few specific areas or circumstances.

Given the differences in population size and city area, big cities with small boundaries and populations less than a million usually end up looking "worse" on these rankings than cities with larger populations because there are less people to dilute the number. This is why I look at it this way:

Number of violent crimes in Seattle in 2012: 3618
Number of violent crimes in Los Angeles in 2012: 19110

Yeah, Seattle is "more dangerous" than Los Angeles.
Yeah, and a total of 100,000 violent crimes happened in Canada. I guess Canada must be more dangerous than Los Angeles, right? Of course you have to adjust for size. How do you not know that? It's why statistics are normalized.
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Old 10-24-2015, 06:20 AM
 
Location: Twin Cities (StP)
3,051 posts, read 2,600,714 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jhenma View Post
Another really surprising one is Minneapolis - it has a violent crime rate of over 1,000 and is among the top 20 worst.
It's all the hipster crack heads.
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Old 10-24-2015, 08:31 AM
 
Location: Metro Atlanta (Sandy Springs), by way of Macon, GA
2,014 posts, read 5,103,996 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by waronxmas View Post
Sigh

Seattle - 608,660 residents
Los Angeles - 3,928,864 residents

FBI crime statistics are calculated by taking how many crimes are committed per 100,000 residents in a given city. This means that for Seattle the number will be higher because the number of crimes are divided by a factor of six while in Los Angeles they are divided by a factor of thirty nine.

If that isn't enough for you to figure out why this ranking in hogwash, here's another explanation:

http://www.usmayors.org/pressrelease...icrimedata.pdf
Yeah, when cities have such a huge difference in population these comparisons dont mean much.

I believe I saw a list of Georgia's most dangerous cities and Swainsboro (population 7,000+) was number 3, higher than Atlanta or any of the 2nd Tier GA cities.
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Old 10-24-2015, 08:47 AM
 
Location: New Orleans
2,322 posts, read 2,994,262 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Soul Bro View Post
Yeah, when cities have such a huge difference in population these comparisons dont mean much.

I believe I saw a list of Georgia's most dangerous cities and Swainsboro (population 7,000+) was number 3, higher than Atlanta or any of the 2nd Tier GA cities.

Then how do you propose we compare cities crime rates?
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Old 10-24-2015, 09:30 AM
 
Location: LoS ScAnDaLoUs KiLLa CaLI
1,227 posts, read 1,595,503 times
Reputation: 1195
>something doesn't fit my version of reality
>WELL YOUR NUMBERS ARE BS ANYWAYS

CD in a nutshell. Why even have a discussion if you're already set in what you think?
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