light at the end

The times dispatch has a story on the decline of crime in VA as well as nationally. It eludes twice to crediting "self protection" of the people as one explanation. I was surprised.
Hope the link works
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/s...cle_858a5c2e-d5b4-5254-a5ac-1f1655a35f08.html

In addition to greater sophistication by law enforcement to analyze trends and attack crime with technological advances, Albanese said other factors for the drop include the aging of the population, a rise in individuals’ ability to protect themselves and their property, a general although not universal drop in illegal drug use, and a brightening of the economy.

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It could be I'm still sleep-deprived, but would someone point out to me just what rise(s) in the ability to protect self and property have occurred in the past year?

Oh! Wait! I think I see it now:

“Central Virginia is in the happy situation of a rising population without a corresponding increase in crime,” said Jay S. Albanese, a criminologist and professor of criminal justice studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, who examined the numbers. “In fact, the opposite has occurred.”
Albanese noted that since central Virginia’s population grew by estimated 9.2 percent from 2006 to 2013, one could at least expect a corresponding slight increase in crime because there are more people to be victims and offenders.
“However, that did not occur,” Albanese said. “Instead, we see that both violent crime and property crime … dropped over this period by 35 percent and 17.7 percent, respectively. Therefore the risk of being a crime victim in central Virginia has dropped.”
The drop in crime becomes more apparent when looking back over the past seven years.

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So RTD is getting a professor to say that the crime rates have dropped over the past 8 years, but putting that statement in an article about the decrease in crime over the last 12 months. Just like they did with most of the other statistics they have dug up and are throwing about.

But at least their pet professor was able to get this in:

Albanese said residents’ fear of crime is greater than it ought to be and that it should come as no surprise, considering the crime stories they see on a proliferation of news platforms, including social media.
The information overload has caused many to develop a sort of attention deficit, Albanese explained, resulting in people skimming headlines or viewing just snippets of truncated news reports that tend to warp their perception of reality.
Social media has contributed to this phenomenon, competing with more traditional news sources that are adding multiple platforms to disseminate information the instant it breaks, Albanese said.
“Unfortunately, news has become bad news, and with the advent of social media and Twitter and the like, everything has become a headline instead of a story,” Albanese said. “So whatever the most scandalous headline people can come up with tends to drive the story of the day.”

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Yes, I know that "If it bleeds it leads" will continue for the forseeable future to be the way stories are selected for presentation to the masses. But at least the RTD - intentionally or not - has been outed as being one of the organs of fear-mongering. I say fear-mongering as opposed to something like "increasing situational awareness" or "strategic information gathering and sharing" mostly because even when Public Works puts up warning signs and barricades the general public does not make any adjustment (if at all) until they are face-to-face with the situation and that seems to go as well for being aware where crime repeatedly happens and taking any appropriate precautions. Maybe the cops are using "crime mapping" more these days but that still means only that the liklihood of a cop arriving to collect evidence might happen sooner than later.

stay safe.

yep

Nightmare said:

Alludes =/= eludes

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/allude

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yep=/=yes , someone had done used all the coffe when I got ta wurk this morn. Get ma coffee in me fore I go a postin agin. much obliged fur tha spellin lernin. Im still pleased and amazed that ANY credit was given publicly in this state and at this time to self protection, arming ones self and taking responsibility for protecting yourself.

Guys it takes time...(*)




(*) For criminals to move to CT, CA, MD, NY; target rich areas, no defense allowed, cops 45 min away.

Maverick9 said:

Guys it takes time...(*)




(*) For criminals to move to CT, CA, MD, NY; target rich areas, no defense allowed, cops 45 min away.

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Would it be bad of us to put up a Kickstarter to get them bus tickets?

stay safe.