Current Events > Police really only solve just 2% of major crimes?!?!

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://theconversation.com/police-solve-just-2-of-all-major-crimes-143878

I'm trying to find something that contradicts this article but I can't.

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criminals are too fuckin good

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The Trent posted...

criminals are too fuckin good

Criminals OP pls nerf, SquareEnix!

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That's not all that surprising. If someone calls and says their store was robbed, all they can really do is show up, write a report, and check any camera footage. At best there will be a grainy face of some generic person, at worst there will be nothing. Even if they HAVE a face, it might not be the right angle to compare it to mugshots, but even if it is the right angle it might not match. If they go out and try to talk to people in the surrounding area there's a good chance nobody will know or be willing to give them information, so the case is a dead end.

Given that most crimes are reported after the fact, and police aren't forensic scientists, nor would they throw that kind of budget at a crime that insurance covers, and nobody is going to give them any tips, the fact that they usually end up unsolved seems reasonable.

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s0nicfan posted...

That's not all that surprising. If someone calls and says their store was robbed, all they can really do is show up, write a report, and check any camera footage. At best there will be a grainy face of some generic person, at worst there will be nothing. Even if they HAVE a face, it might not be the right angle to compare it to mugshots, but even if it is the right angle it might not match. If they go out and try to talk to people in the surrounding area there's a good chance nobody will know or be willing to give them information, so the case is a dead end.

Given that most crimes are reported after the fact, and police aren't forensic scientists, nor would they throw that kind of budget at a crime that insurance covers, and nobody is going to give them any tips, the fact that they usually end up unsolved seems reasonable.

True. Their job isn't to protect and serve. It's to preserve the status quo.


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Cops are glorified insurance agents that also shoot people.

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i look forward to the takes that say this is evidence we should abolish police

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2% seems too low but I agree its not really a shock.

Homicide solve rates are around 50% most places. Given that many of those practically solve themselves its a pretty clear indicator the cops aren't gonna solve a well planned murder most of the time.

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that's nuts
so what do cops do exactly

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SquantoZ posted...

True. Their job isn't to protect and serve. It's to preserve the status quo.

You just agreed with a point he didnt make.

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ThyCorndog posted...

that's nuts
so what do cops do exactly

I wonder if you'd be shocked about the percentage of experiments that a scientist does that are complete failures.

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law and order my ass...

ThyCorndog posted...

that's nuts
so what do cops do exactly

sit around and take alot of overtime pay

COVxy posted...

I wonder if you'd be shocked about the percentage of experiments that a scientist does that are complete failures.

This comparison sounded a lot smarter in your head. It should have stayed there too.


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NinjaWarrior455 posted...

This comparison sounded a lot smarter in your head. It should have stayed there too.

I mean, the point is that success rate is not really an appropriate measure of work when the problem is hard.

Do you imagine that the majority of crimes are even solvable?

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The data show that consistently over the decades, fewer than half of serious crimes are reported to police. Few, if any arrests are made in those cases.

I didn't see anything linking this in the article. Is there a place I can see this?

Their whole article is just saying "if half of all crimes are reported" and taking all the numbers and dividing them by 2. Like "They only solve 4 percent, and if half of all crimes aren't reported that's really 2 percent". That's the gist of the article.

I'd really like to see that 1/2 of crimes are reported source though. Kind of wish the had it.

Edit: Found something.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

In its annual survey, BJS asks crime victims whether they reported their crime to police or not. In 2019, only 40.9% of violent crimes and 32.5% of household property crimes were reported to authorities. BJS notes that there are a variety of reasons why crime might not be reported, including fear of reprisal or getting the offender in trouble, a feeling that police would not or could not do anything to help, or a belief that the crime is a personal issue or too trivial to report.

I mean, if they solved more than 2/4 percent than maybe people would feel that the police will help.

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s0nicfan posted...

That's not all that surprising. If someone calls and says their store was robbed, all they can really do is show up, write a report, and check any camera footage. At best there will be a grainy face of some generic person, at worst there will be nothing. Even if they HAVE a face, it might not be the right angle to compare it to mugshots, but even if it is the right angle it might not match. If they go out and try to talk to people in the surrounding area there's a good chance nobody will know or be willing to give them information, so the case is a dead end.

Given that most crimes are reported after the fact, and police aren't forensic scientists, nor would they throw that kind of budget at a crime that insurance covers, and nobody is going to give them any tips, the fact that they usually end up unsolved seems reasonable.

This pretty much. When I was 13, our house got broken into during the day when no one was home. There were no fingerprints and no witnesses came forward. So the thieves were never caught. It was frustrating, but what else could they do with no evidence?

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NoxObscuras posted...

This pretty much. When I was 13, our house got broken into during the day when no one was home. There were no fingerprints and no witnesses came forward. So the thieves were never caught. It was frustrating, but what else could they do with no evidence?

they could GO FUCK THEMSELVES

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NoxObscuras posted...

This pretty much. When I was 13, our house got broken into during the day when no one was home. There were no fingerprints and no witnesses came forward. So the thieves were never caught. It was frustrating, but what else could they do with no evidence?

I think the point the article is trying to make is that all this money gets unnecessarily thrown at police with very low rates of success. Redistribution of tax money makes sense as a result.

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SquantoZ posted...

I think the point the article is trying to make is that all this money gets unnecessarily thrown at police with very low rates of success. Redistribution of tax money makes sense as a result.

How does that make sense?

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COVxy posted...

How does that make sense?

What police metric would you use to determine success? Rate of arrests?

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SquantoZ posted...

What police metric would you use to determine success? Rate of arrests?

Not sure I have a simple answer for that.

Though I don't think funding public services on the basis of some sort of "success" metric has ever turned out particularly well.

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COVxy posted...

Not sure I have a simple answer for that.

Though I don't think funding public services on the basis of some sort of "success" metric has ever turned out particularly well.

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/performance-measures-police-officers-974456

For departments, crime rates tend to be the go-to metric to determine effectiveness, despite the fact that issues well outside of a police agency's control can have a tremendous impact on crime in a given community.

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Not a major crime but I remember like 15 years ago when I was a teen my cadillac converter was chopped off my car. My mom said I should make a police report so I did and the cops basically said unless a guy just comes in an confesses to doing it there's nothing they can do.

The whole "they keep us safe" thing doesn't really make sense when they typically only get involved after the bad thing has already happened and then don't or can't do much to solve it.

Seems like it would make more sense to address the conditions that create crime on the front end rather than rely on an institution that won't or can't do the work people expect from them.

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COVxy posted...

Not sure I have a simple answer for that.

Though I don't think funding public services on the basis of some sort of "success" metric has ever turned out particularly well.

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2015-r034/index-en.aspx#polperf

Crime rates, along with the more sophisticated measure of the Crime Severity Index (Statistics Canada, 2009), are probably the oldest and the most traditional measures of the success of police work. The reasoning behind using crime rates as a measure of success is reflective of the common belief that reducing crime is a primary task of the police. Indeed, a reduction in crime rates can be an indication of the excellent work being done by the police. However, there are at least three problems with using crime rates or the Crime Severity Index as the main measure for police performance. First, the work of the police is, by far, not the only influence on crime rates. An array of factors such as levels of education, rates of poverty, the age of the local population, rates of addiction or other mental health problems, the number of transient residents, etc. influence the level of crime in a community (Gomes, 2007). Unless statistically controlled for and weighted by these and other factors, crime rates alone cannot, and should not, be used as the sole performance measure of police work.
Second, crime that is reported to and recorded by the police is heavily dependent on the processes of police departments that receive and record the report. The behaviors of police officers receiving the complaint, whether and how the complaint was recorded in the system, the departmental practices that encourage or prevent reporting, if the police services collect data on crime reported to non-police entities in their jurisdiction, or statistical reporting practices can all have a significant influence on crime rate statistics.
Finally, it is well established that not all crime is reported to the police. Victims of crime might be reluctant to report incidents to the police for a number of reasons, including fear of retaliation from the offender, embarrassment, fear of deportation in the case of immigrants, fear of secondary victimization through the interaction with the criminal justice system, thinking that the damage was not big enough or that the police would not be able to help. Regardless of the reasons for not reporting crimes to the police, unreported crime would greatly influence the true rate of crime. In this sense, it is important to use victimization surveys, such as the Victimization cycle of the General Social Survey (GSS) in Canada, to supplement the police-reported crime rate with the rate of unreported crime.
The number of arrests and fines issued are other traditional measures of police performance. Similar to crime rates, the number of arrests and fines issued by the police is a measure of performance because arresting criminals and enforcing the law by giving out fines for infractions is seen as one of the primary outcomes of police work.
Using arrest and infraction data as a primary performance measurement for police work can be problematic for several reasons. First, the definition of arrest can vary among different agencies. Various studies in the U.S., for example, show that uniformity in how police agencies define arrest is lacking, therefore making comparisons between agencies close to impossible (Sherman, 1980a; Sherman, 1980b). Second, an arrest is but one of the options for action for police officers in a difficult situation. In this sense, an arrest could be seen as a failure by a police officer to employ other strategies to resolve the situation in another manner. For example, petty crimes such a theft of small, inexpensive items in a supermarket or possession of a small amount of marijuana could result in issuance of a warning rather than an arrest. For youthful offenders, in certain cases, informal restitution arrangements or transfer to parental responsibility might also be an outcome of police involvement.

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You need to take a breath and re-read my posts. Then consider exactly what of my posts you're trying to address by quoting these articles.

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TC, just say ACAB so we can all move on. Your nonsensical non-replies to posts isn't changing anyone's minds and you're just making yourself look like a fool in your weird attempt to make a point without outright saying it.

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s0nicfan posted...

TC, just say ACAB so we can all move on. Your nonsensical non-replies to posts isn't changing anyone's minds and you're just making yourself look like a fool in your weird attempt to make a point without outright saying it.

Most cops are bad and suck at their jobs.

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I think major crimes are usually handled by groups like the fbi, but I could be wrong.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtx/divisions/criminal-division/major-crimes

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Also...

"When considering approaches to police reform, its important to remember that Americans still dont report about half of major crimes and police dont solve very many of the cases that do get reported. Truly improving policing will require addressing these two gaps."

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The police aren't really supposed to solve crimes or serve the public. They're supposed to be the government's armed mob for crushing dissent and extorting money, and they're spectacular at that.

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Mistere Man posted...

I think major crimes are usually handled by groups like the fbi, but I could be wrong.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtx/divisions/criminal-division/major-crimes

No the fbi has specific types of crime and specific situations where they will become involved.

Multiple homicide is a major crime, but barring extenuating circumstances its mot something the fbi will typically investigate.

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The Trent posted...

i look forward to the takes that say this is evidence we should abolish police

I'll do it for you trent. If cops don't prevent crime, they aren't required to protect you from a crime in progress (per multiple supreme court decisions) and they don't solve crimes, what purpose do they serve?

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CanuckCowboy posted...

No the fbi has specific types of crime and specific situations where they will become involved.

Multiple homicide is a major crime, but barring extenuating circumstances its mot something the fbi will typically investigate.

Fair enough, as I said I could be wrong, and I was so I am sorry.

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