Black Lives Matter, The Police, etc.

[MNdible]

Only a "trend" if you cherry pick the start date and, to a lesser extent, don't adjust for population.

Yes, the start date is from a recent-history low point, but I don't know that it's necessarily cherry picking. I (and probably most residents) hoped and believed that the lowering crime rates were a new normal, not just a temporary blip. Obviously, it's hard to extrapolate a long term trendline as opposed to just statistical noise (or an increase based on rising population and visitors), but it does cause me some concern.

[Sacrelicio]

Only a "trend" if you cherry pick the start date and, to a lesser extent, don't adjust for population.

Yes, the start date is from a recent-history low point, but I don't know that it's necessarily cherry picking. I (and probably most residents) hoped and believed that the lowering crime rates were a new normal, not just a temporary blip. Obviously, it's hard to extrapolate a long term trendline as opposed to just statistical noise (or an increase based on rising population and visitors), but it does cause me some concern.

Long term trend is (and has been) a decline in crime rates, especially violent crime.

[MNdible]

Sure. But I meant a long term trendline that starts in the last five years and extrapolates into the future.

[Sacrelicio]

Sure. But I meant a long term trendline that starts in the last five years and extrapolates into the future.

Like 2011 was a turning point, ushering in a new era of crime? I mean it could trend up for a bit but if the overall graph goes downward then crime rates are still going down.

[amiller92]

I (and probably most residents) hoped and believed that the lowering crime rates were a new normal

They are, and it takes a pretty funny viewing of the last five years to see them as a return to the past, with much higher crime rates than we are talking about.

It's like worrying that the five pounds you put on over the holidays means you're going to gain back the 80 you lost prior to that. It could be something, but it's probably not.

[Chef]

I lived near east Lake St and in Frogtown through the '90s when those neighborhoods resembled the Wire's portrayal of Baltimore more than they resembled any current incarnation of the urban Twin Cities. Hearing gunshots used to be a matter of daily routine in large swathes of inner Minneapolis and St Paul. In my mind crime is still down.

[Tiller]

Reminder that leaded-gasoline, not any other pet supposition, caused the crime epidemic:
http://m.motherjones.com/environment/20 ... k-gasoline

[Sacrelicio]

I lived near east Lake St and in Frogtown through the '90s when those neighborhoods resembled the Wire's portrayal of Baltimore more than they resembled any current incarnation of the urban Twin Cities. Hearing gunshots used to be a matter of daily routine in large swathes of inner Minneapolis and St Paul. In my mind crime is still down.

My girlfriend grew up in Southwest and went to South High during that time, she had a classmate struck by a stray bullet over where the new Seward Coop is on 38th street. I lived in the suburbs but every time we came to the city for a concert or to hang out something crazy would happen in areas that are now safe and gentrified. Parts of Lyn-Lake used to be an open air heroin market, and Lyndale was lined with run down houses until you got way south of Lake Street. Even in the early 2000s when I was first living in the city for college things were bad in a lot of areas. I had a friend who lived on 37th and 3rd Avenue South, they had a drive by shooting next door, tons of car break-ins, some guys from the neighborhood showed up at a party and stole a bunch of stuff (we were naive lol), crack dealers living across the street, daily fights and domestic disturbances....I'd have no problem walking around over there now. I lived over near Van Cleve Park and we even had several robberies and a drive by shooting at the park. I lived in Whittier from 2005-2009 and it was a lot sketchier than it is now.

This city has come a long way.

[MNdible]

They are, and it takes a pretty funny viewing of the last five years to see them as a return to the past, with much higher crime rates than we are talking about.

Look, I'm not saying we should send out the National Guard. I know how bad things were in the mid-90's. I'm just saying it's not absurd to pay attention to trend lines and ask if we're no longer moving in the right direction.

[Sacrelicio]

They are, and it takes a pretty funny viewing of the last five years to see them as a return to the past, with much higher crime rates than we are talking about.

Look, I'm not saying we should send out the National Guard. I know how bad things were in the mid-90's. I'm just saying it's not absurd to pay attention to trend lines and ask if we're no longer moving in the right direction.

I see your point, but I imagine people in charge of things like that are paying attention, at least to some degree. Law enforcement frequently responds to short term trends, like increasing police presence downtown in light of recent incidents, for example.

[RailBaronYarr]

FFS can we at least look at the data on a per-capita basis before talking about bumps/trends?



I used the Strib's data and annual population from here and increased 2015 by 1% over 2014. Homicides certainly jump up from the 2010-2014 average. Aggravated Assault barely moves up. Rape and Robbery actually drop. It's very hard to conclude anything from this.

[Tiller]

http://grist.org/politics/one-of-the-an ... -you-think

Posting this here since it relates to race and the boundaries between public/private property (both which have been discussed in this thread), and because I found it interesting.

Here's the meat about public/private property:

Grazing allotments act like private property in some ways

The federal government, and the courts, have seen grazing allotments as privileges granted to certain cattlemen that can be revoked or altered at any time. But in some ways, grazing allotments are more like property — and this can put ranchers in a financial bind. A bank will give you a loan with the value of your grazing allotment as collateral. The government also taxes the value of grazing allotments (in capital gains and estate taxes).

Most importantly, allotments are attached to private land called “base properties.” Buy the base property and the grazing allotment comes with it (basically — it can get much more complicated than that). That makes these base properties a lot more expensive than they would be otherwise, said Shawn Regan, who has spent a lot of time studying this issue as a research fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center, a free-market-oriented environmental think tank.

“So, while it’s true that ranchers pay absurdly low grazing fees …,” Regan wrote in an email, “they pay for the grazing permit as part of the value of the ranch.”

Put all this together and you can see how ranchers end up in the situation where their ability to make loan payments depends on their grazing allotment.

“All this goes a long way, I think, to helping explain why these issues are so contentious out West,” Regan wrote. “When a rancher’s grazing permit is reduced, or his ability to graze livestock on public lands is somehow otherwise restricted, it often implies a significant loss in his base property’s value. In many parts of the West, base properties are just 160 acres or so, while the associated grazing permits can be hundreds of thousands of acres.”

[Tiller]

The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pu ... story.html

FRESNO, Calif. — While officers raced to a recent 911 call about a man threatening his ex-girlfriend, a police operator in headquarters consulted software that scored the suspect’s potential for violence the way a bank might run a credit report.

The program scoured billions of data points, including arrest reports, property records, commercial databases, deep Web searches and the man’s social- media postings. It calculated his threat level as the highest of three color-coded scores: a bright red warning.

Oh boy

The number of local police departments that employ some type of technological surveillance increased from 20 percent in 1997 to more than 90 percent in 2013, according to the latest information from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The most common forms of surveillance are cameras and automated license plate readers, but the use of handheld biometric scanners, social media monitoring software, devices that collect cellphone data and drones is increasing.

The fact that public discussion of surveillance technologies is occurring after they are in use is backward, said Matt Cagle, an attorney for the ACLU of Northern California.

“We think that whenever these surveillance technologies are on the table, there needs to be a meaningful debate,” Cagle said. “There needs to be safeguards and oversight.”

Red flags galore.

[David Greene]

Well I don't know. The threat score definitely seems like a bad idea because of the biases it can introduce in a potentially volatile situation. Seems like a very bad idea to rely on a heuristic algorithm to influence real-time life & death decisions.

As far as some of the other tools, I guess I don't have a huge problem with police, for example, analyzing social media during investigations. You post it, it's public. As for cell phones, it depends on what they're doing. Obviously listening in is a no-no without a warrant, but what about tracking a phone location? Or even tracking which calls a phone makes? Police can already pull land line phone records. Assuming they need a warrant for that, it seems reasonable to require a warrant for the similar operation on cell phones. Even then, I'm not sure a warrant should be necessary for location tracking. Does one have an expectation of privacy regarding phone location when it is literally broadcasting it to everyone?

I'm not sure what to think about biometric scanners. Again, your appearance isn't exactly private information. Some pieces of information may be more "private" than others, though. It seems like a grey area that needs sorting out.

With drones it absolutely depends on what they're looking at. The same warrant rules should apply. Police have had helicopters for how long?

My point is not to dismiss concerns but rather to temper knee-jerk kinds of reactions. Some of these things are probably ok. Some are probably not. I agree that we do need to talk about them but I don't think we need a big debate before every single piece of new technology gets used.

[mulad]

Duplicate names worry me when this sort of idea comes around. Many other people have my same first and last name (one even lived in the same dorm as me one year in college), though I'm somewhat lucky to have an unusual middle name.

[grant1simons2]

The other Grant Simons in Minneapolis does a lot of illegal activity. So that's concerning.

[Didier]

Sure he does.

[mattaudio]

There's another Matt Steele who's apparently a leader in the MN GOP....

[grant1simons2]

You don't have to believe me. Just think it's funny/weird/scary what people with the same name are doing.

[mplsjaromir]

Have you ever been confused for this G. Simons?