Thank you Gregory Reinhardt for your post on Minneapolis Issues about statistics in general and crime stats specifically. It was as good an explanation of Minneapolis statistics and their limitations as anything I have seen.
Mr. Reinhardt says, "Before there were statistics, there were myths. These stories were allegories about ourselves. They told about out values, hopes and dreams. Myths served as a symbolic reflection of our inner selves." Actually, myths are shared stories or motive that is collectively passed down from and by a culture. As such "Myths" are symbolic reflections of that culture's definition of a "inner-self". There have been far more myths created after statistics than there were before. Chief among these myths was that the numbers had had meaning outside of their intent. It is a bit like glorifying the hammer because it gives meaning to the nail. The myth is that statistics are any more than a simple tool that allows people to describe and compare phenomena. There are qualitative as well as quantitative forms of analysis, both are nothing more than attempts to form rationality out of chaos, and neither method or tool is any better than the observer, the questions asked, or the analysis of the observed. The problem comes when society attaches a believability to the statistics that surpasses their true purpose of, and as, "tool". I enjoyed Gregory's report on crime stats. It brought meaning to Minneapolis' crime statistics. Given that there is the knowledge that crimes against persons and crimes against property are different, why does Minneapolis lump them together when looking at CodeFor? It almost sounds like the water is purposefully muddied. Lets get on with as Gregory says, "comparing apples to apples" and stop using statistics as if watermelons and apples have the same weight. I can assure a reader that any one rape equals a great deal more than 50 thefts to the individual woman or girl who is the victim! They also have very different weights for the individual resident's general perception of a neighborhood's danger and quality of life. Very insightful was the fact that, "These categories reflect proactive enforcement action. Consequently they are not indicators of criminality but indicators of enforcement action." The reporting of such things as rape are very different in poor neighborhoods that in "good" neighborhoods. So the comparative measurement of them for indicating danger in neighborhoods is questionable at best when the statistics indicate enforcement rather than level of criminality. While the persons experience or "data" might only be anacdotal in nature I can assure any reader that it has no less meaning for "real people" dealing with "real lives" and not just armchair theory. Mr. Reinhardt says, "Albert Einstein said 'Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.' What is counted is what is of value. Each community has its own set of values, the Minneapolis community has its own. Each individual in turn, has a set of different priorities." Both he and Albert are so correct. Numbers do not adequately express any value other than those of the person collecting, assembling, and then using them. The problem occurs when some do not place the same value on identical acts perpetrated against different people. Some individuals from wealthy neighborhoods do not apparently place the same value on the bodies of the poor woman in a poor minority community who is being raped as they do on their wife or their daughter suffering the same. Look at the press and media coverage the two rapes in Hopkins received. Versus the absolute failure to report any of the huge number of rapes in Ventura Village, Jordan, or Hawthorn Neighborhoods. The numbers and the values indicated by that differential in coverage given the differences in statistics on per capita rate are morally repugnant to those who actually look at the statistics. Look and see the heart ache and pattern of discrimination they actually measure. Look at a different statistic - minutes of media coverage per "per capita" rape rate. To me it clearly shows the values of our wider community, and the lack of value it has for the suffering of poor and minority people. In fact some individuals place as much value on the theft or the vandalizing of an automobile in a "Nice Neighborhood" as the rape of a girl or woman in a poor minority community. The difference is the value of "them" versus the value of "us". To bad poor people and communities do not also get to be "us" to those people, isn't it? Jim Graham, Ventura Village >"Do not so firmly follow a belief or statistic that it blinds you to justice and truth." TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
