FBI Crime Data Explorer(cde.ucr.cjis.gov)
cde.ucr.cjis.gov
FBI Crime Data Explorer
https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/home
53 comments
Just a reminder: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Just because some people can’t help themselves to make this about race, the submission has to be flagged into oblivion?
The site is quite good and with easy to navigate graphs. Definitely throwing it in my bookmarks in case I ever write on the subject. Thanks!
The site is quite good and with easy to navigate graphs. Definitely throwing it in my bookmarks in case I ever write on the subject. Thanks!
With respect, I do not see why FBI crime statistics are considered racist. It is because it is a part of the US government?
There are many things people are mad at the US. Ukraine conflict, Israel conflict, etc. I wonder if people are flagging because it is US government adjacent.
There are many things people are mad at the US. Ukraine conflict, Israel conflict, etc. I wonder if people are flagging because it is US government adjacent.
>With respect, I do not see why FBI crime statistics are considered racist. It is because it is a part of the US government?
Because this data requires serious, responsible and honest engagement, and it's tempting to use it to confirm biases.
Allow me to make a parallelism stepping aside from controversial topics. Imagine we had graphs of discovered vulnerabilities in closed source and open source software. It wouldn't surprise me if the amount of vulnerabilities discovered in open source software was way higher than those of closed source software. At first glance this may paint a terrible picture of open source, yet, if you actually engage with the subject, you would find out that the reason as to why this happens is that those vulnerabilities are found out, while they stay hidden in closed source. Yet anyone not willing to dig in that deep could point out and claim "See? Open software is terrible!"
In the same way, you can look at crime statistics by race and claim that black people in the US are terrible. This requires ignoring socioeconomic status and a whole lot of other factors, but it's really easy to ignore those and it's really easy to just point at a graph.
The data is not the problem. The way people engage with the data might very well be, this is a complex and delicate matter and it is my hope it can be dealt with in the way it deserves.
...Not that it has to be dealt with here, really, the website is pretty damn nice.
Because this data requires serious, responsible and honest engagement, and it's tempting to use it to confirm biases.
Allow me to make a parallelism stepping aside from controversial topics. Imagine we had graphs of discovered vulnerabilities in closed source and open source software. It wouldn't surprise me if the amount of vulnerabilities discovered in open source software was way higher than those of closed source software. At first glance this may paint a terrible picture of open source, yet, if you actually engage with the subject, you would find out that the reason as to why this happens is that those vulnerabilities are found out, while they stay hidden in closed source. Yet anyone not willing to dig in that deep could point out and claim "See? Open software is terrible!"
In the same way, you can look at crime statistics by race and claim that black people in the US are terrible. This requires ignoring socioeconomic status and a whole lot of other factors, but it's really easy to ignore those and it's really easy to just point at a graph.
The data is not the problem. The way people engage with the data might very well be, this is a complex and delicate matter and it is my hope it can be dealt with in the way it deserves.
...Not that it has to be dealt with here, really, the website is pretty damn nice.
Most people don't quote data that is easily misinterpreted though. Like sure if you did shoplifting, speeding, or something else, it may require that. But if you're quoting murders, or violent crime, that stuff is often reported, especially in nicer areas, and may even be less reported in poorer areas.
Because they demonstrate that race Y is overwhelmingly more likely to commit violent crimes against race X, while the media/government narrative is currently that race X is the biggest threat to the country.
Bostonian(4)
I imagine it's not in the interest of public officials to submit data which weakens their authority, undermines or invalidates their positions - and that opposite holds true too.
The data seems less than substantial because it's not thorough nor potentially accurate, even when collected. Perhaps there's substance in comparing data here to data elsewhere to highlight official intent.
It's neat they have a public-facing API.