Talk:Crime in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Crime in the United States article.
Article policies
United States Portal
This article is within the scope of the United States WikiProject. This project provides a central approach to United States-related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
Maintained The following user(s) are actively contributing to this article and may be able to help with questions about verification and sources:
Brendel
This in no way implies article ownership; all editors are encouraged to contribute.

Contents

[edit] Is this article in dispute??

The page says that the facts in the article are in dispute, but: 1. I cannot find it on the list of disputed pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Accuracy_dispute 2. I see nothing here in the talk section about something being in dispute - only a few comments which have been fully addressed. 3. I don't see any stat or source even remotely fishy or disputable. Am I missing something? 75.36.219.141 (talk) 10:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Arthur

I am removing the factual dispute tag 75.36.219.141 (talk) 11:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC) Arthur

The disputed tag was added without comment in the edit. The adder has not commented here at all. 75.36.219.141 (talk) 11:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Arthur

[edit] Characteristics of crime victims

in the United States in 2005, 37,460 White females were sexually assaulted or raped by a Black man, while between zero and ten Black females were sexually assaulted or raped by a White man

what is the meaning of this? only 10 females raped by white man? stands to common sense that these numbers look wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.78.38.76 (talk) 16:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

This is correct. For both 2004 and 2005, the two most recent years, the number of incidents of sexual assault with a white perpatrator and a black victim was 0.0 percent. Of 36,620 cases in which the victim was black, 100 percent of the offenders were black, and 0.0 percent of the offenders were white. The table explains that 0.0 percent means that there were under 10 incidents nationally. This is the DOJ link for 2005: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus0502.pdf Table number 42. This is for 2004: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus0402.pdf Table 42 again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.219.141 (talk) 09:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Completely false, the 0.0 figure is an estimate based on 10 or fewer sample cases. If anything, that means the figure is less accurate. It should also be mentioned that the numbers vary significantly over the years. For example, it is conveniently left out that in 2004, of the cases where the victim was white, only 8.3% of the perpetrators were black. In fact the 33.6 figure from 2005 is significantly higher than the number from any previous year given by the USDoJ site. In 2002, of the cases with a black victim, 14.7% had a white perpetrator. I think it's reasonable to be skeptical of these numbers. 74.92.159.213 (talk) 20:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC) Jason

[edit] Nebraska

The table "Number of Crimes per 100,000 persons (Crime Rates)" is missing a row for Nebraska. 129.93.191.229 07:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

This article will be significantly expanded within a short amount of time. It is nowhere near finished. Thank you. Best Regards, Signaturebrendel 03:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: I finished the initial major extension phase. Regards, Signaturebrendel 06:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] States

This section tends to conflate the violent and property crime rates. For example, there is a sentence:

Of the nation's three most populous states, California, Texas and New York, both New York and California had crime rates below the national average, while Texas was one of the country's seven most dangerous states

But this is based upon adding the violent crime rate to the property crime rate, thus giving Texas the rank of 7. Texas has a lower violent crime rate and a higher property crime rate. Most people would consider "dangerous" to mean violent crime. So it would be good to be precise when comparing rankings. Perhaps the thing to do is to make rankings for violent crime and property crime separately.Kevinp2 03:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the word dangerous actually only refers to all crime in this sentence. Would you like me to replace the word dangerous? SignaturebrendelNow under review! 03:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
I think that would be more precise Kevinp2 22:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Alrighty, I changed the wording to "Of the nation's three most populous states, California, Texas and New York, both New York and California had crime rates below the national average, while Texas had one of the country's seven highest overall crime rates." Regards, SignaturebrendelNow under review! 23:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homicide Statistic Germany

There seems to be a misreading in case of the German crime statistic. The stated 3.0 cases per 100.000 inhabitants are actually the number of attempted murders and manslaughters. The 'success rate' is actually around 1.0.

You're right, how could I overlook that! The Mord und Totschlag (homicide) rates include attempts. The homicide rate according to the BKA is 1.1. See here. Thank you for the correction! Regards, SignaturebrendelNow under review! 02:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Illegal immigrants

Someone should mention the proportion of crime committed by illegal immigrants and it's impact on US statistics. --18.127.1.9 16:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I can look it into it but undocumanted workers are probably no more likely to fall vicitim to or comitt crimes than any other magrinalized and imporverished group such as poor inner-city minority residents. The 12 million or so undocumented workers do have an unproportionally high crime rate (mostly vicitimizing themselves), as do other groups. I think the race section already makes it clear that those who are disinfranchised have a higher likelyhood of becoming vicitms/perpetrators. Regards, SignaturebrendelHAPPY HOLIDAYS 20:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I read that 33% of prisoners in American prisons were illegal immigrants. I would think this would skew our rankings. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rotten (talk • contribs) 22:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC).
Where did you read that? Signaturebrendel 17:58, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Don't you think that calling illegal aliens "undocumented workers" is ridiculously POV? It implies that 100% of illegal aliens are "working", which would at the very least violate child-labor laws. Furthermore, it grants legitimacy to the percentage of illegal aliens maintain their lifestyle through criminal means. I think that "illegal alien" is an entirely neutral and factual term, especially considering the term which supports my own POV (namely, "colonist"). Loundry (talk) 22:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
That is not the issue here. The U.S. Census Bureau uses the most accurate term, "unauthorized immigrant." Personally, I consider illegal alien a grotesque dehuminization and misleading as most have never harmed American society - they have merely borken a unjust law the enforced nothing but opinion (rather than protecting society and advancing the common good). But that is irrelevant here - rembember that WP is not a soapbox. Regards, Signaturebrendel 06:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First sentence: huh?

I like how much work has gone into this article.

But, "Crime in the United States is characterized by relatively high levels of gun violence and homicide, compared to other developed countries although this is explained by the fact that criminals in America are more likely to use firearms.." That's not a sentence. That's ridiculous.

Gun violence is relatively high, which is /explained by/ the fact that criminals are more likely to use firearms? What? What was this sentence trying to say, and how on earth did it wind up there? Also, why two periods?  :)Eh Nonymous 21:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

That sentence truly is an example of bad writing (it also isn't the original opening sentence I used when I wrote this article). I think the sentence trying to say that becuase American criminals are more likely to use fireamrs there are more homicides (becuase killing with a gun is easier than with a knife). I will re-word the intro-sentence. Regards, Signaturebrendel 00:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Largest Cities Crime Stats

The article claims to have crime stats for the top 10 largest cities in the country, but doesn't include either Jacksonville, FL or Detroit, MI. And what is Seattle doing on there?? Washington, DC, Boston, MA, and Baltimore, MD all have bigger populations than Seattle.71.206.184.243 (talk) 01:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point... I don't know why Boston, Baltimore, etc... are missing but smaller cities, such as seattle are included. I will correct the mistake in a short while, unless someone beats me to it (something I encourage in this case!). Rergards, Signaturebrendel 02:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)