Measuring public safety with a ruler
🚔 A more natural metric for crime · Fusus returns · War on Hate · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone.
Filmmaker and Nashville-resident Gabriel Mann, who I have interviewed before concerning his documentary on wildfire firefighters Hotshot, did a podcast yesterday about the Los Angeles fires that I found extremely informative if such things interest you. You can listen here.
Onward.
Crime rates are the most commonly-used metric to measure public safety. But often left out of the conversation is what level of crime should we accept as a natural by-product of liberal democracy (or whatever we’re calling it these days) and what level of crime warrants concern. It’s a difficult question to answer if the response is greater than zero. Typically, crime rates are used to indicate broadly whether crime is increasing or decreasing.
First, few people have a sense of scale for where these rates fall in either historical or even present contexts. For example, rates were higher in the 80s and 90s than they are today. This fact is commonly trotted out by crime apologists (how else to describe these people) to bludgeon those who express concerns about public safety in the present.
And second, because the metric is so unnatural, it tells us very little about the material world. The relative scale of rates in the present year compared to previous years does nothing to reassure people and does not result in changes in behavior.
Everyone from the President of the United States on down to our wonkish mayor will plead with the public that “crime is down” (relatively speaking) and insist that anyone who believes otherwise has been duped by misinformation or fallen prey to those pesky “narratives.”
So what do crime rates really tell us? Or maybe a better question is how do the authorities expect us to react to them? Do they want people to consult street layouts overlaid with crime heat maps and then decide to avoid certain parts of town? People almost certainly do this when deciding where to rent or buy a home, but what I’m concerned with is how this number affects daily behavior, if at all.
Do people see a group of scurrilous characters huddled in a back alley, consult the latest FBI crime statistics, weigh the likelihood of a crime occurring, and then decide whether or not to avoid the alley or seek an alternative route? “Well, the homicide rate in the city is only 15 murders per 100,000 thousand people, so that puts our chances of getting murdered at little over a thousandth of a percent,” the ideal citizen in this dystopian nightmare might think to himself, “So, this alley is much safer than it looks.”
Here, we see an example of how a fully informed citizen—a paragon of progressive civic engagement—armed with the most up-to-date data might ideally employ this information as he stares bravely at the facts to dispel his biases and modifies his behavior based on new information in the face of disinformation, false narratives, and rank racism. He updates his science, in other words. He's fully vaccinated. Etc.
The fact is, we adopt all sorts of behaviors to avoid situations that might expose us to risk regardless of what the crime rates tell us. Thus, a better way to go about assessing this might be to determine which areas we feel comfortable going into and which we do not feel comfortable going into. The broken windows theory gets at this truth.
Crime rates are a crude instrument by which to order reality. Generally, they are roughly applied to big areas (like Davidson County). If such rates were delivered more narrowly about specific parts of town, they would be more informative for the public. But they never are. A quick look at the homicide map of Nashville shows that most murders occur in particular parts of town, but very rarely do you hear public officials get specific about where the crime is occurring and who is committing it.
What is a more natural way to gauge and understand people’s perception of public safety? That’s basically the question I’m asking. The standard system of measurement is to the metric system of measurement as ____ is to crime rates. Crime statistics are burdened by several conflating factors that, at a high level, indicate how well the city is doing with regard to general crime year over year, but they tell us very little about how people are actually reacting to improvements or regressions.
The key factor here is that a more useful metric would be applied and talked about granularly to concentrate resources on areas that are particularly afflicted by crime by taking into account how much people have to do to avoid it (which would repress the crime rate). If people in X part of town never leave the house because they’re afraid of getting mugged, the rate will be lower than it would otherwise be if they behaved as if crime were not a real issue in the area.
A more natural metric might measure real estate prices, foot traffic on sidewalks throughout the day, how long businesses operate in the area, and the presence of social spots like bars and restaurants and their performance compared to other areas.
A more difficult thing to track might be social trust in the area. Can you, as one Twitter user puts it, “walk into a convenience store at 2:30 a.m. to get a snack on a Friday night while leaving your car unlocked with your girlfriend in the front seat." You might test areas with a “Rotherham Test,” as Twitter poster Loki Jullianus puts it: “Can a young girl walk around the area without anything bad happening to her and if she runs into the police, will they be generally helpful?”
There are definitely places where this is not an issue, and more granular crime data can tell us which places those are in theory. But generally, people are not modifying their behavior based on crime rates; instead, they use their eyes and ears. The foundation of our entire understanding of public safety is trust in public officials, be they cops or politicians. And some measurement that reflects this trust by observing and measuring how people actually behave about it would be a far more effective means by which to gauge how successful various crime prevention strategies are because lowering the crime rate must be accompanied by an increase in public trust. If not, what’s the point? DAVIS HUNT
⧖⧗⧖ SHOW YOUR SUPPORT ⧗⧖⧗
If you want to support our work at The Pamphleteer, a recurring donation is the best way. We have a $10/month Grub Street tier and a $50/month Bard tier. Membership gets you access to our comments section and free access to upcoming events.
📹 Will Metro Pick Fusus Over LPRs? A week ago, Mayor O’Connell sang the praises of Metro Nashville Police Department’s use of real-time camera access in helping keep attendees safe during Nashville’s New Year’s Eve Big Bash. Though the council recently shot down an integrated camera surveillance technology contract between MNPD and Fusus, the mayor expects the council to revisit the discussion early this year—and it seems his administration may be favoring this technology over License Plate Readers. “I think, especially as we've looked at New Year's Eve here, as we've had more discussion with individual council members…on a higher quality information set to dispel some of the myths that came up around the Fusus discussion, we should be able to get to success on that,” O’Connell said at January 3rd’s media roundtable.
As for LPRs, the timeline has experienced numerous setbacks due to circumstances laid out by the mayor’s office. Not only did O’Connell further extend deliberations by hosting three more community conversations back in April, but in October he explained that progress hadn’t moved as quickly as anticipated due to a delay in feedback from MNPD. At the time, Councilmember Courtney Johnston questioned O’Connell’s assertion. “First, we were told the delay was procurement, now it’s MNPD? MNPD has been begging for this technology for years, so a delay at their hands is doubtful,” she said. “The mayor failed to fund LPRs in this year's operating budget. So that will be the next excuse, I predict.”
And it seems she may be correct. In this morning’s District 12 Dispatch, Councilmember Erin Evans updated her constituents about the status of LPRs. “The council has a few other MNPD-related pieces of legislation to consider before we get to LPRs,” she wrote. After explaining that the council plans to revisit LPR policy before negotiating a contract, she said that Metro’s conservative approach to revenue forecasting may push things out another six months: “I fully expect that we'll have the anticipated conversation about LPR implementation to align for our next budget (which will begin on July 1st.)”
🎓 Democrats To Weigh In On Education Policy Michigan State University Education Policy Professor Josh Cowen will be joining Democratic state legislators for an Education Town Hall in Nashville next Wednesday. Senator Heidi Campbell and Representatives Bob Freeman and Caleb Hemmer will be joining in the discussion that is sure to revolve around the governor’s school choice legislation that would introduce a publicly funded voucher program.
“School choice within and between districts, charter and independent public schools—with full management—are fair, reasonable policy positions and have some evidence to support them,” Cowen posted on X last week. “Publicly funded K12 vouchers leave families to fend for themselves—and leave too many behind.”
Though the MSU professor may not agree with Lee’s approach, the governor is anticipated to call a special session focused on his education policy if his administration projects he has enough support from the state legislature to get it over the finish line this time around.
🤬 Preptit’s War On The Hate Cont. “Over the past year I have been leading the charge on ensuring that hate groups and paramilitary organizations are not infiltrating Metro government and exposing us all to danger,” wrote Councilmember Jeff Preptit in his New Year Newsletter on Friday. “We are currently in the process of doing a Metro wide audit of policies to ensure that we are being proactive in addressing issues of institutional infiltration.”
Back in August, Vice Mayor Angie Henderson replaced Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda with Preptit as this year’s Rules, Confirmations, & Public Elections chair. Now that he’s in the hot seat, the Brookmeade council member announced that he will be holding a specially-called meeting on January 29th “to discuss some proposed changes to the Council rules.”
“I am also monitoring legislation affecting Metro at the State Legislature as well as working with our Davidson County delegation to enact legislation that will better our city and state,” he continued.
Recently, Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) and House Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) filed a bill they’re calling PEACE, which stands for Protecting Everyone Against Crimes and Extremism. The legislation looks similar to the four public safety bills passed by Metro Council in October in response to a neo-Nazi demonstration downtown, creating police buffer zones and addressing the dispersion of hateful materials, signs to overpasses, and the transportation of people in cargo trucks—all initiatives that align with much of the policies Preptit has encouraged as a Metro council member.
DEVELOPMENT
- Turnip Truck Opens New Location in Midtown (Scene)
- Calypso Cafe owners sell business to family members (Post)
- Major permit issued for Midtown project (Post)
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🪕 Bronwyn Keith-Hynes @ Dee's Lounge, 6p, $10, Info
🎸 Timbo & Lonesome Country @ Jane's Hideaway, 8p, Info
+ modern take on classic country, bluegrass & hillbilly Jazz
🪕 Val Storey, Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle & New Monday @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info
💀 Grateful Monday @ Acme Feed & Seed, 8p, Free, Info
🕺 Motown Monday @ The 5 Spot, 9p, $5, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
The Pamphleteer
The Pamphleteer
The Pamphleteer
The Pamphleteer