re: #111 Dark_Falcon

That would seem to run on preexisting assumptions, though. How are crimes to be measured save through police reports and arrests?

Seriously? You’re just now discovering the field of criminology?

Anonymous self-reporting is more accurate, as is inference from criminal interviews and tracking of the money from the drug trade. We have a rough knowledge of the money flowing to the pot and heroin dealers in Portland, for example, and we know roughly the money flowing to the pot and heroin dealers in South Side Chicago.

Obviously, police reports and arrests are not a good metric, unless you think there’s equal investigation into all areas of society. You can’t simultaneously think that the cops preferentially choose where to search and that the cops represent an evenly distributed investigative presence showing where there’s more or less crime to be found by the frequency of arrests in those population. Those two positions are contradictory.