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Crime is not "misrepresented". The problem is that the "city" is misrepresent in census data. St. Louis for example. City limils population has fallen to less than half what it was 70 years ago, but the metro more than tripled, and nearly all the crime still uccurs in the city center. The crime rate r=x/y. But x has gone from 900,000 down to 400,000 (city) and y from a million to 3 million (metro).
So the ratio of crimes to population, using one counting method has gone from about 1:1 up to almost 10:1, even if there was no change numerically in number of crimes.
Its important to know where crime is happening. Take STL, Baltimore and DC for instance the only independent city/ county relationships that I know of. If you include the population of city/ County they fair pretty similar despite different city rates.
Stl city/ county 300k/990k total 1.29 million
Murders (2021) 194/89 total 283
City+county rate. 21.93
Wash DC/ Prince George's co. 680k/960k total 1.64 million
Murders(2021) 226/133 total 359
City+county rate 21.89
Baltimore/ Baltimore. Co. 580k/920k total 1.5 million
Murders 2021 337/54 total 391
City+ county rate 26.06
Even though DC has 3 independent counties adjacent to it im just using Prince George's bc its most similar to St louis county and Baltimore county in population.
You are looking at homicide rates only. Which can be influenced by a few specific things (gun control or lack thereof? Drug trafficking "turf wars"?)...
In some world cities, the drug gangs are dominated by south or East Asian gangsters or white biker gangs or other ethnic groups. Street violence reflects that. So the thread logic here intrigues me.
And what about all the other violent crime? If you look at sexual violence, including crimes against children, is that as segregated by zip code?
Yes, it's really important to know where crime is happening, and it's equally important not to get an insular outlook on what crime looks like or how violence happens...
Human depravity might be somewhat inclined to observe zip codes but it's not some type of "rule" of any sort.
"The pirate code is more like guidelines than actual rules."
I doubt that the citizens of Memphis share your point of view. This week Memphis had two horrific murders/ murder sprees that made world headlines.
A kindergarten teacher jogging in front of a college campus kidnapped off the street and murdered in cold blood. Days later, 4 people murdered and several others shot by a man driving around the city killing people and broadcasting live his murders on Facebook. The entire city was on lockdown while the police chased the murderer all over the city. Both murderers had been let out of prison early after countless other violent crimes.
Memphis has the highest murder rate of any metro area in the nation and it's not even close. Jackson, Mississippi has the highest murder rate possibly in the world presently, among individual cities. All races are affected as they must set their alarms to merely rake leaves in the front yard. They must ran through the parking lot at the grocery store. God forbid they go downtown at night to a restaurant.
American cities often mix low-income and middle class neighborhoods, changing block by block. So yes, all Americans should be apoplectic that more criminals in this country are not convicted and put away for life or executed. Our expectation should be the level of safety found in countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Scandinavia, Switzerland, or for that matter Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Being over dramatic or pessimistic is not good. Yes the U.S has alot of violence and crime of all types, but setting alarms to rake leaves or running through parking lots to pick up groceries?
If reality was really this dire, we would have heard about a city-data member being a victim of "street" violence. The truth is most people are still rather "safe", that includes most people on here. I do hear about green mariner's stories of incidences from childhood and recent close calls, but the fact remains that most posters on here (which represents casual society) are quite out of harms way.
Although I do understand the need to over dramatize conditions for the sake of mental stimulation as I used to over dramatize things myself.
If you are a crime victim in Canada or Japan, it doesn't make a difference, you are still a victim of crime and suffer the same effects. It's no different than the U.S.
The only difference is rates, charts, statistics... numbers.
This website is all about numerics so I understand the need to capitalize the higher number.
I doubt that the citizens of Memphis share your point of view. This week Memphis had two horrific murders/ murder sprees that made world headlines.
A kindergarten teacher jogging in front of a college campus kidnapped off the street and murdered in cold blood. Days later, 4 people murdered and several others shot by a man driving around the city killing people and broadcasting live his murders on Facebook. The entire city was on lockdown while the police chased the murderer all over the city. Both murderers had been let out of prison early after countless other violent crimes.
Memphis has the highest murder rate of any metro area in the nation and it's not even close. Jackson, Mississippi has the highest murder rate possibly in the world presently, among individual cities. All races are affected as they must set their alarms to merely rake leaves in the front yard. They must ran through the parking lot at the grocery store. God forbid they go downtown at night to a restaurant.
American cities often mix low-income and middle class neighborhoods, changing block by block. So yes, all Americans should be apoplectic that more criminals in this country are not convicted and put away for life or executed. Our expectation should be the level of safety found in countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Scandinavia, Switzerland, or for that matter Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
I'm a middle-class law-abiding white dude who lives in an impoverished, high-crime, majority-Black neighborhood in Pittsburgh. I live here due to being gentrified out of my former safer and whiter neighborhood (Pittsburgh is becoming very socioeconomically segregated with half the city becoming San Francisco and half becoming East Cleveland).
Pizza delivery drivers get robbed at gunpoint by juveniles in my neighborhood regardless of their race. Thanks to the whining of people who are more liberal than I am (ironically many of whom live in safe neighborhoods) we now don't have anywhere to house juvenile offenders within Allegheny County, so now most are simply placed under house arrest so they can commit another crime the next day. A colleague of mine told me that years ago her neighbor was randomly targeted and murdered while walking his dog in the neighborhood. Carjackings, catalytic converter thefts, theft from vehicles, package thefts (of which we have been victims), etc. occur here indiscriminate of race involved.
Pittsburgh is having a rough 2022 for crime, and, no, I do not feel safe despite being white. Not every urban white person has enough "privilege" to live in a nice white urban neighborhood. Unfortunately in the case of Pittsburgh we don't have any nice majority-Black urban neighborhoods because too much of our Black professional class has left either for the suburbs or for other major metropolitan areas over the years. I do get along with and have befriended numerous Black neighbors. With that being said I'm incredulous that a Black person would wonder why a white person would be afraid of falling victim to a stray bullet.
I'm a middle-class law-abiding white dude who lives in an impoverished, high-crime, majority-Black neighborhood in Pittsburgh. I live here due to being gentrified out of my former safer and whiter neighborhood (Pittsburgh is becoming very socioeconomically segregated with half the city becoming San Francisco and half becoming East Cleveland).
Pizza delivery drivers get robbed at gunpoint by juveniles in my neighborhood regardless of their race. Thanks to the whining of people who are more liberal than I am (ironically many of whom live in safe neighborhoods) we now don't have anywhere to house juvenile offenders within Allegheny County, so now most are simply placed under house arrest so they can commit another crime the next day. A colleague of mine told me that years ago her neighbor was randomly targeted and murdered while walking his dog in the neighborhood. Carjackings, catalytic converter thefts, theft from vehicles, package thefts (of which we have been victims), etc. occur here indiscriminate of race involved.
Pittsburgh is having a rough 2022 for crime, and, no, I do not feel safe despite being white. Not every urban white person has enough "privilege" to live in a nice white urban neighborhood. Unfortunately in the case of Pittsburgh we don't have any nice majority-Black urban neighborhoods because too much of our Black professional class has left either for the suburbs or for other major metropolitan areas over the years. I do get along with and have befriended numerous Black neighbors. With that being said I'm incredulous that a Black person would wonder why a white person would be afraid of falling victim to a stray bullet.
Speak of the devil, and this was actually in an affluent "safe" Pittsburgh neighborhood:
Crime is such a huge reason why people will or will not move to a city. But in most areas crime in very localized, and tends to only affect one race, African Americans. Being Black I feel like this maybe an unpopular opinion but it's much truth to it. Crime affects Blacks by far the most of any race, so why is crime such a hot button topic for Whites?
This is far too political to really discuss on this forum. However, I will say that it mostly is due to the significant amount of violent crime. Just scares 'em.
This is why I say its important to know where crime is. Its not that complicated to understand the closer you are to crime areas the higher likelihood of being a victim. If you are white and move to DC chances are you won't be affected if you live in a safe area of NW vs SE. However you can still be a victim of robbery, car jacking or any random crime so crime has to be considered in any city. I don't understand the OP's logic that just bc you aren't black nothing will affect you. Maybe why DC lost 20k residents last year bc crime went up and the workforce is mostly working from home leaving some areas with just gentrifiers and vagrants.
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Boredatwork
