You may hear about these statistics on the news, if there's not a celebrity off shaving something while the cameras are watching.
When I see them, I like to compare the stats to past years, relate my local area to regional statistics... yes, it's a moment of geeking out with statistics.
Here's a comparison of Columbus, Ohio, violent crime rates to the Midwest:
The chart shows percentage change; negative numbers indicate a decrease of course.
Note that violent crime in general is down in the Midwest by %1.7, but up in Columbus by %5.
While Columbus has had fewer murders than the Midwest as a whole ( down %8 in Columbus vs. down %3.8 regionally ), rape is on the rise in Columbus by %11 while regionally it's down %7.1 .
Other numbers are similarly bad for Columbus. In robbery, we're up %5 while the Midwest is down %3 and in Aggravated Assault Columbus is up %4 while regionally it's down %0.2.
Rates for Violent Crime per 100,000 in Columbus Ohio are as follow:
| Violent Crime | Murder | Rape | Robbery | Aggravated Assault |
| 852 | 11 | 90 | 523 | 228 |
That's the problem with statistics... sometimes they tell you things you don't want to hear.
3 comments:
Honestly this doesn't surprise me. Working at a hospital I see the results on a nightly basis.
Your experience could be an example of the weakness of statistics; it takes time to count things and you need enough things to count.
For anyone deeply involved, the statistics should produce a "duh". However, they are useful for informing people who aren't as deeply involved, but may be impacted.
The other weak part of statistics, is that they only show the gross number...
Certain areas aren't affected as much as others. A possible reason I see more of the results of the rise in violent crimes is mostly because of the area I work in.
As certain areas of town are going to show more of a tendency towards this type of activity than others.
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