urbanSTL

StlToday - A police major said officer crashes aren’t up in St. Louis. But they are.

From 2016-19, annual crash totals averaged 111. In the past four years, they’ve averaged 143.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... e31fd.html

I don’t know why where the offender lives would matter more than where the crime is committed. Nonetheless, we have to make progress on the carnage caused by cars in our region.

^ i think it's pretty obvious why it matters. crime is a metro-wide problem in need of metro-wide cooperation and resources, but the rest of the metro likes to pretend the city is the source of all the crime.

Also, fits more in the Crime thread than the Car Crash thread since she was hiding from gunshots.

urban_dilettante wrote:^ i think it's pretty obvious why it matters. crime is a metro-wide problem in need of metro-wide cooperation and resources, but the rest of the metro likes to pretend the city is the source of all the crime.

Of course. But the crime rate is an indicator of the level of crime where the crime occurs, not where the perpetrator lives.

^ the point is that it's an arbitrary metric that ignores important context, serves no constructive purpose, and perpetuates fragmentation. "where the crime occurs" can be divided up in all sorts of stupid ways to make any place look safe or dangerous.

urban_dilettante wrote:^ and the point is that it's an arbitrary metric that ignores important context, serves no constructive purpose, and perpetuates fragmentation.

It’s not at all arbitrary and it does serve a purpose. It does often tells an incomplete story.


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disagree. it's absolutely arbitrary as a comparative metric because it's based on incomparable municipal boundaries and population densities. fully agree that it tells an incomplete story, which is the problem. what constructive purpose has it served?

urban_dilettante wrote:disagree. it's absolutely arbitrary as a comparative metric because it's based on incomparable municipal boundaries and population densities. fully agree that it tells an incomplete story, which is the problem. what constructive purpose has it served?

urban_dilettante wrote:disagree. it's absolutely arbitrary as a comparative metric because it's based on incomparable municipal boundaries and population densities. fully agree that it tells an incomplete story, which is the problem. what constructive purpose has it served?

We talk to no end on this forum about how the crime rate in our city is trending. It’s the first stat we look to when discussing crime. Again, it always needs context but it certainly has a constructive purpose.


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Debaliviere91 wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2024

We talk to no end on this forum about how the crime rate in our city is trending. It’s the first stat we look to when discussing crime.

That isn't an argument for its objectivity or utility, though.

Debaliviere91 wrote:Again, it always needs context but it certainly has a constructive purpose.

If it always needs context then it's not a useful metric for comparisons. And, again, what are some of those constructive purposes?

I can’t think of any crime statistic that doesn’t need additional context. Can you? That doesn’t mean it’s not useful.

For example, we’ve discussed crime trends often last year and used the crime rate specifically to form a narrative around the improving crime trends in the city.

What statistic would you use to more accurately describe crime in St Louis that didn’t need more context?

We talked about the amount of crime and how it changed, not so much the amount per resident other than how much lower the number of murders would have to be in order to be out of the top ten of murders per 100k residents.

Car Crashes with Fatalities/Series Injuries in STL City for the first 2 months of 2024,2023,2022,2021,2020

quincunx wrote:We talked about the amount of crime and how it changed, not so much the amount per resident other than how much lower the number of murders would have to be in order to be out of the top ten of murders per 100k residents.

We still discuss the crime rate and and its trends relative to St Louis’s population changes over longer periods of time (comparing our crime to 90s when we had ~25% more people living in the city as an example).

Even when we talk about absolute crime numbers and not rates, we discuss where the crimes are happening and how those trends are changing, not where the perpetrators live, though that can be useful context.

Indeed the discussion didn't focus on where the criminals resided. I didn't say that it did. I do think it is relevant to point out sometimes because it undermines the meaningfulness of using crimes per population when comparing cities, which is why I did.

Debaliviere91 wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2024

I can’t think of any crime statistic that doesn’t need additional context. Can you? That doesn’t mean it’s not useful.

For example, we’ve discussed crime trends often last year and used the crime rate specifically to form a narrative around the improving crime trends in the city.

What statistic would you use to more accurately describe crime in St Louis that didn’t need more context?

We've thoroughly derailed this thread so this is my last comment on the subject.

Yes, for example stats like number of crimes of type X in a given precinct, distribution of crimes of type X within a given precinct, location of origin of criminals committing crimes of type X in a given precinct, location of origin of guns used to commit crimes in a given precinct—information that actually helps the police and policymakers to allocate resources and develop strategies to address the crime. Crime rate is a nebulous value dependent on an arbitrary choice of denominator, and it's regularly abused by the media to scavenge for clicks with little consideration for the real reputational damage and resulting disinvestment that it causes. The FBI even cautions against ranking cities according to crime rates. It's not a good analytical tool, so what's the point other than stoking arguments on social media?

cities in Europe are moving forward
(notice the use of cameras)
https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/cp_data_news/none-of-the-european-cities-that-lowered-the-speed-limit-to-30-km-h-regrets-it/

StlToday - St. Louis pedestrian killed on Gravois early Sunday by hit-and-run driver

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... 3a199.html

KMOV - Woman walking on shoulder of road in Cottleville hit by car driven by drunk driver, police say

https://www.firstalert4.com/2024/03/18/ ... r-custody/

Preface this by saying this may not be the situation with this tragedy 

However I have experienced a number of times where construction workers utility workers etc  seem to set up their project on the street without thoroughly considering the oncoming traffic or intersections I know I should document photo time etc but there's been a number of times where I felt like yelling out at them we need more forewarning about the setup you've got here

hebeters wrote: ↑

Apr 06, 2024

Preface this by saying this may not be the situation with this tragedy 

Read the article. These weren't road workers. They were repairing an awning on a building.

StlToday - 2 teens charged in crash that killed construction worker in St. Louis County

Two south St. Louis County teens were charged in the crash that killed one construction worker and injured another on Friday morning.

Patrick Aten, 18 and Deondre Robinson, 18, were racing each other in the 9900 block of South Broadway when Robinson allegedly lost control of his vehicle and struck two construction workers, authorities said.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 53c71.html