What the hell is wrong with humanity?

[Bates]

Here's a quote to deal with counter-intuitive comment Nik

"Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill is asking the city for a budget increase of 6.1 per cent, saying the city is getting a ?great return on its investment? in the force."

So saying your doing a great job is another way to ask for more.  You need the increased resources to continue doing this great job.  I also believe our police do a fine job but police catch people after a crime has been commited. Every year I read in SK about the reduction in crime from our police chief and yet we continue to lead the nation in crime.  He states this time that crime is down 30% in last 8 years.  I find that number a little difficult to trust.

 

[BlueWhiteBlood]

I mean look at the run of Roman Emperors after Cesar: Tiberius, Caligula and Nero.  If you want to see evil, read about these boys.

Things could be worse.

I don't think anybody is saying that conditions for Humanity as a whole haven't improved since the Dark Ages or the Roman Empire. But that also doesn't mean that things aren't getting worse from where we were even 50 to 100 years ago.

I think the difficulty with the opening question in the thread title, is that this is going to mean different things to different parts of humanity. Canada might feel very different, than even the United States right now, most certainly when we're dealing with different economic situations. For the most part Canada has avoided the extreme debt problems that the States has, which in turn will cause the populous to respond in different ways and I only say that because the discussion has turned to crime rates.

Is there a way to answer this question in a more general way, as the question is asked? I'm not sure.

 

[Deebo]

A little off topic, but one statistic that I found a little alarming was the percentage of murders that are actually solved, it hit an all time low in Toronto last year:

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/914504--toronto-police-struggling-to-solve-murders

In the '60s, approximately 95 per cent of homicides were solved, falling to about 80 per cent in the '80s, and continuing a downward trend in the '90s and this century. By 2003, Toronto's clearance rate hit a historic low of 53 per cent, inching upward to 54 per cent last year, and sliding to 44 per cent in 2010.

I don't know the causes but if what is in article is true, over half of the reported murders in this city go unsolved.

 

[Kin]

Here's a quote to deal with counter-intuitive comment Nik

"Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill is asking the city for a budget increase of 6.1 per cent, saying the city is getting a ?great return on its investment? in the force."

Asking for and receiving are two different things. I know that personally, as a taxpayer, I'd be more inclined to spend more money on crime if I thought it was a more serious problem than a trifling nuisance.

So saying your doing a great job is another way to ask for more.  You need the increased resources to continue doing this great job.  I also believe our police do a fine job but police catch people after a crime has been commited. Every year I read in SK about the reduction in crime from our police chief and yet we continue to lead the nation in crime.  He states this time that crime is down 30% in last 8 years.  I find that number a little difficult to trust.

Well, aside from that not actually being contradictory provided that the nationwide crime rate is also dropping(which it is), there's more to it than Saskatoon. I've lived in Toronto for most of my adult life. I grew up in two Toronto neighbourhoods, one lower class and the other middle, have been affected by violent crime and Toronto feels safer than ever.

 

[hockeyfan1]

http://www.johnhoward.ab.ca/pub/C16.htm#out

The discrepancies between public perceptions and statistical fact are such that Canadian society has been gravely misinformed about youth crime. To address the gap between the views of the public and the actual rates of youth crime, the role of the media and professional groups in shaping public attitudes toward youth crime will be
explored

Many juvenile justice academics agree that the media are chiefly to blame for false public perceptions regarding criminal justice issues

Thus, violent crime is highly over-represented in the news media given that it comprises only 11% of all crime in Canada (CCJS, 1997, July, p. 3). When questioned in a follow-up study, editors of many of the surveyed papers admitted that they typically only report the worst types of crime, and the worst cases of those crimes. On the rare occasions that information is given with respect to sentencing, no minimum or maximum penalties for offences are indicated. Furthermore, only punishments that appear exceptionally lenient are deemed newsworthy.

Thus, people's opinions are heavily influenced by the media.

A number of public misconceptions about youth crime are identified. It is shown that the public believes that youth crime is increasing dramatically, as is the seriousness of the crimes committed. The official statistics respecting the nature and extent of youth crime are then presented. It is concluded that public perceptions that youth crime is increasing in number and seriousness are not supported by the official data.

Along with the belief that youth crime is widespread are the perceptions that youth crime is increasing in seriousness and in proportion to all crime (youth and adult crime combined). Again, however, the official statistics do not support such a belief. In terms of proportions, homicide rates are deemed to be among the most accurate indicators of crime trends. This is because the offence of murder affords little opportunity at any point in the criminal justice process for outside factors to bias a case's handling (ie., the seriousness of murder means reporting or charging rates for this crime should not change over time). National statistics show youths are responsible for approximately 47 murders each year (CCJS, 1996, p. 10) or roughly 8% of all homicides, a proportion that has remained unchanged for at least a decade. Less than one percent of cases heard in youth court are for murder, manslaughter and attempted murder (CCJS, 1997, October, p. 4).

 

[hockeyfan1]

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/teaching_backgrounders/crime/crime_time_news.cfm

... a Statistics Canada report released last June found that 46 percent of those polled feared more for their safety today than they did five years ago. Yet, ironically, that same report concluded Canadians were no more at risk of becoming victims of violent crime in 1993 than five years earlier,

So why is it Canadians are increasingly afraid of crime even though statistics say we're not seeing more of it on our streets? Partly, it may be because we are seeing a great deal of it on our television sets and in the news in general. Reporters and producers generally agree that today crime stories constitute a larger part of the news package than they did a few years back. This increase, coupled with television's tendency to focus on dramatic crimes like the TTC swarming, may be casting a distorted, larger-than-life shadow on the reality of crime.

....virtually no similar random acts of violence have occurred on the TTC, nothing to indicate that, despite its terrifying nature, the swarming was more than an isolated incident on an otherwise safe transit system.

Anthony Doob. The University of Toronto criminologist says he's long believed that television news, and news in general, distorts people's perception of crime....

"If I ask people why they think crime is increasing, they sort of stand back and say, 'Well, what a dumb question. Everybody tells me it is, and all you have to do is open a newspaper or turn on the television to see it happening....

Jojo Chintoh...Citytv's crime specialist...says he's often covered stories in which there seemed to be "nothing there": "I have to fill a spot on our news show of about a minute to a minute and a half. Sometimes, there's not much happening. So what do I do? I pick an incident and end up making more out of it than I should. We all do it."

The very idea that the news media hypes crime out of proportion with reality strikes Jim Poling as inane. As vice-president of Canadian Press...Poling believes that it is organizations like Statistics Canada and criminologists like Doob -- not the media -- that are out of touch with the biting reality of crime on city streets. He holds that crime statistics are hardly convincing, since numbers can be "played with" and made to show almost anything. "They can fill this whole goddamn building with reports. But you go out and you tell real people in coffee shops and on the streets that crime is down and they'll laugh in your face. Reality tells them it isn't."

Like Poling, reporter Sheila Manese, who has worked the CBC Evening News police beat for the last seven years,has noticed a gradual but marked change in what she tags the "style of crime." Guns and knives play a part in a greater number of the robberies and assaults that she covers. Sexual attacks and even schoolyard fights have become more brutal.

Criminologists won't argue there have been changes in the nature of crime over the past few years, drive-by shootings, for instance, are certainly a relatively new phenomenon..With an unprecedented four million people living in the Greater Toronto Area, for instance, it is almost statistically impossible to go for more than a day without a shooting, stabbing or other serious offence...

The types of crimes most covered are just as important in shaping individuals' perceptions of their community. After all, if your favourite TV news show offers up a selection of petty thefts, assaults and only a few stories of rape or murder, you'll probably be less afraid of taking an evening stroll than your buddy whose news show puts a little more chaos on its menu.

Jojo Chintoh concurs that television news tends to cover "scarier, titillating" crime stories, and only rarely devotes time and resources to corporate crime. "Visuals are the power of television. The more graphic and dramatic, the better. A mother crying over a coffin is like a kick in the gut. An interview with a computer expert explaining how some guy stole $10,000 with his boss' computer isn't even a pinprick." As a result, Chintoh believes, viewers are often left with an exaggerated fear of violent crime, a fear that Dr. George Gerbner, a professor and dean emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania?s Annenberg School for Communication, has labelled "mean world syndrome."

....it is true that crime has popular appeal....

Crime remains a serious national problem that's not going to vanish if we close our eyes to it. But opening our eyes to the kind of crime-heavy newscasts being offered up won't help either. Too often, the media just don't concern themselves with bringing the bogeyman of crime out of the bushes and into the light. Canadians are as safe today as they were five years ago. But if that's the kind of reality check you're after, you'll rarely find it in the news.

 

[hockeyfan1]

Thieves with a heart...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/08/thieves-apology-note-san-bernardino-_n_3724932.html