• mr_world [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Great wording. If the homicide rate never increased more than 3% because it was already at record highs then dropped to 0%, but then jumped to 5%, that would be the highest increase too. They're talking about the rate of increase rather than the plain rate because I'm guessing that won't get clicks and won't drum up anti-crime bullshit. The rate of homicide can increase dramatically while homicides remain rare. Especially if we're talking year-on-year rates with 2020. I can't tell you how much bullshit has been said because people are comparing current numbers of anything to last year, which was a outlying year.

    >1357 homicides in 2020

    >1721 in 2021

    Not trying to trivialize death but goddamn are you fucking kidding me? Less than 2000 homicides? There are over 300M people in the US. Covid killed probably at least 1M in a year and people act like it doesn't exist. Yet 2000 people get murdered and it's suddenly every street corner is unsafe.

    I fucking hate crime statistics. It's all such bullshit. Nobody ever reads them correctly. They're never presented correctly. You can use them to justify almost anything and read anything you want out of them.

    • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Agreed; using percentages when the absolute numbers are small is deceptive without further context, and in the context of this article and the media at large is likely fearmongering bull.

      More people died of COVID in the US over the last 2 weeks than were killed via homicide all of last year

    • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Homicides are a bad thing, and sober material analysis means engaging data how it is, not making excuses. A 20% increase in homicides is the same relative increase as Covid had on "all kinds of dying". It's absolutely going to worry people, and plugging your ears because the surface narrative looks "bad" for your side is peak lib shit.

      Lots of "materialists" ITT playing 5-D chess (have to deny crime stats because otherwise the pro-police crowd!!!!) instead of the likely answer - multiple overlapping crises have made society more violent at an alarmingly fast rate.

      • mr_world [they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Of course they're a bad thing and if they're up we know why. I'm not arguing that homicide isn't up, I'm arguing about the framing and how the numbers are portrayed in order to stoke suburban fear. A 33% increase means shit all if the increase is from a very low number to another very low number. How many homicides is too many? If 2000 is unacceptable, then what's the solution? Even if you completely satisfied all material conditions, there would still be some murders in a population of hundreds of millions. Should there only be 100 murders per year and that's the criteria for deciding 2000 is too many? 2 is a 100% increase over 1. So if there were 1 murder last year and 2 this year, that's a 100% increase. Is that a crisis? It probably is if all the media runs "100% increase in crime" stats during primetime.

        I don't know how to be more materialist or sober than doing the actual math and looking at the numbers relative to the other numbers.

        Historical materialism holds that you can't take pieces of information in isolation. Saying 33% is terrible just because it's higher than last year or any year, without regard to what that actually represents in the material world, isn't materialism either. As I just said multiple times, you can have a highest-in-history rate increase without the actual cases being common. It's a pretty simple math problem to figure out.

          • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            No, you don't understand. Crime doesn't exist, the police just make it all up. Literally no one has ever been murdered before, it's all psyop.

        • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          It's not 33% from a "very low" number though. Homicide rates are lower than they were in the early 90s, but they've been lower for a long time. Currently, the homicide rate is at its highest in close to 25 years, and it happened suddenly. That IS a big change!

          Instead of worrying about the optics and immediately acting the way they want you to ("loony lefties deny violence!!!!") There's very real material reasons why violence is increasing, but let's just deny them because we assume people will get the wrong idea.

          • mr_world [they/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            But nobody is denying that rises in crime come from material reasons. Still not understanding where you're getting that from. You can hold that roving gangs aren't coming to murder suburban and rural America while also knowing that poor covid response and degradation in material conditions = more crime. They're not mutually exclusive.

      • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Didnt know we had :thumb-cop: on hexbear...

        This is some tired bullshit and the material analysis of this situation is not about the increase, but about the millions of dollars of media coverage being thrown at this small increase. 300 more murders overall against a year when half the country was on rotating lockdown is a crisis? No.

        The crisis is that during that year, people began to realize that the police aren't necessary and the established capitalist order needs an excuse to continue to publicly fund their foot soldiers.

        • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Dude, denying an massive increase in violence is not defending the cops. You all sound like literal caricatures. Yes, if we just lie to the public in our own way, we will abolish police tomorrow!

          • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            You're a clown lmao

            This isn't even an uptick worth mentioning, fucking 10 people per month in the entire country is nothing when 1000x that are dying each month from a preventable disease that is being ignored.

            The only reason anyone is hearing about this is because they want to scare people into giving the police more money full stop. They don't plan to do anything about it. Stop supporting police union propaganda.

            • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Dude, the homicide rate is as high in 2020 as it was in 1995. The obvious answer here is "Police budgets have increased, but crime is the same. Police are useless".

              The propaganda is Lefties doing insane cope because one statistic "looks bad", when in fact an increase in the homicide rate despite the massive increase in police and prisons is proof that they don't do shit.

            • ExceedsTheCharacterL [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Dude, police are getting more money. The only reason some police departments were defunded was because of Covid. No propaganda is needed, people are scared.

            • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              How is an increase in homicide despite more police being a "stooge"? If anything, this proves they're worthless, but go off.

              • hahafuck [they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                You are a stooge because you are a goofy stupid-hair motherfucker incapable of understanding simple things like ladders

      • LeninWeave [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Talking about a "largest increase" from 2020 (wonder why that might be an outlier) rather than the absolute number compared to all previous years is obvious stat-cropping to justify "tough on crime" nonsense. You're replying to a comment which makes this same point.

      • hahafuck [they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        You're right, we are all stupid for not buying CNN's line here

        • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          You're all being too clever by half. Crime is up for very real material reasons, not some insane conspiracy about CNN lying to hurt the police abolition movement. That's some Breitbart comment section level shit.

          • hahafuck [they/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Nobody is claiming a conspiracy or even disputing the data but thank you for calling me clever

            • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              If you were clever, you'd say "wow, despite the increase in police, crime is still up". Or you could simply deny reality because it's nothing but police union propaganda.

              • LeninWeave [none/use name]
                ·
                3 years ago

                :bruh: All everyone is saying is they pick which statistics they emphasize and then do a media blitz because, surprise surprise, the people who own media companies also support the police big-time.

                • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  All I'm saying is that it's better to flip the script than to try to cry foul.

                  • LeninWeave [none/use name]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    Yeah, but you can do both. That guy got the wrong numbers from the video, but he's right that focusing on the increase is bullshit stat-cropping.

                    Also, this is a discussion forum for leftists, we're not debating chuds here.

              • hahafuck [they/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Again nobody is denying the veracity of the data you are missing the point big time

          • TrudeauCastroson [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            what are the material reasons then? I've seen stats that say theft is down which doesn't make any sense.

            Are people just sick of everything so they're murdering others as soon as lockdowns stop and nothing is really done on COVID?

            Also notice that CNN isn't using a 5 year rolling average to compare to, instead the most outlier year they could. It's still up but i hate dishonest stats.

            • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Just a general breakdown in society caused by the complete failure of our government and institutions to come up with and enforce a reasonable response. The added stress from job loss, the toll on relationships from being home all day, etc. plays a role.

    • LeninWeave [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      1357 homicides in 2020

      1721 in 2021

      What are these numbers??? A quick search shows it's way more than this.

      I agree that it's stat-cropping though. Bullshit police stenography.

  • Oso_Rojo [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    There are about a dozen episodes of the pod on why this post is just fear mongering :the-podcast:

    • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Deathwish drivers are fucking insane here and in glad I'm not the only one who's noticed. I swear crime has plummeted here, but traffic fatalities have skyrocketed.

      I'm constantly getting rocketed past by people going 100mph+ on the highway. Been in 2 close calls and one near fatal accident thanks to truck dudes going 45+ in residential zones.

      • stigsbandit34z [they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I'm pretty sure this tracks with the increase in traffic fatalities. I was reading something about how people drove faster during quarantine (fewer cars on the road) and never slowed down as things got back to normal

      • medium_adult_son [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Same thing has been happening on the residential streets I walk on. I've noticed a lot more drivers going at least 40 in a 25 on any street where street parking isn't allowed. I swear some people park their spare or teenagers' cars on the street to get drivers to slow down, whatever works I guess.

        I hate driving, I keep getting passed by SUVs that noticeably lean to one side while changing lanes going 80 mph, and I got passed on a residential street recently. I wonder what the stats on deaths caused by automobiles are lately.

    • Sushi_Desires
      ·
      3 years ago

      There have been a lot of catalytic converter thefts in my neck of the woods lately

      • CthulhusIntern [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That has increased everywhere. It used to be a rare crime, now it's common, due to the price of metals such as platinum going way up.

  • read_freire [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    No archive link.

    Uncritically passing along cnn/fed crime fearmongering.

    How the fuck is this a hexbear post exactly?

  • stigsbandit34z [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Reality check: Statistic cherry-picked and misconstrued to stoke fear in boomers and suburbanites

  • FRIENDLY_BUTTMUNCHER [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Can't wait for right-wingers to smugly say that we shouldn't have defunded the police, even though all of their budgets went up anyway.

    • GVAGUY3 [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      For right wingers, if a bunch of left wing people say something, that means the democrats actually did it

    • posters_pavillion [it/its]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      2020 had over 1000 fatal police shootings, about 5% of the 21,570 homicides recorded last year.

      2021 is on track to be a margin below that (654 so far).

      Source

  • emizeko [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    is this is the part where we start chewing each other's faces off