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Flawed Map Says L.A.'s Crime Highest Next to Police HQ
CNET briefly describes how a poorly chosen default behavior has led to an online crime map of Los Angeles (on a site designed at a cost of $362,000) that shows that "a location just a block from the department's new headquarters is the most crime-ridden place in the city." I wonder how often this sort of error would completely skew things like real-estate maps that attempt to show whether houses in a certain neighborhood are worth more than those in the one next door.
Get those properties while they're cheap! Well, cheaper than they already were, considering the economy.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
More seriously, they should probably have had the program throw an error in case they could not find a certain location rather than putting the crime report at an arbitrary location. That would have caused the problem to be discovered earlier.
Perhaps it is the new C.R.A.S.H HQ? [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_Scandal[/url]
Seeing how rogue so many police officers are, it might not necessarily be quite off the mark.
It's not a legally recorded crime unless someone is caught and convicted. It's not surprising that these crime maps would show this result - the places that police officers are most likely to be, are the places where the most crime is "found".
This is akin to saying that the places where the most vehicular crime occurs are where speed traps and automated traffic cameras are located.
If you had a world with absolute and omnipresent law enforcement, and that society could somehow actually function, my guess is that the map would match a map of the average human traffic in a given location.
Ryan Fenton
Hmm, wonder if http://crimereports.com has similar problems? There does seem to be a bit of clustering in some areas, and no reports at all in others, at least in the case of LA
Wow, and after reading about the police in Phoenix, I almost wondered whether the heading was wrong.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
For those who never played SimCity 4, it has a very strange bug where you would be notified about a "crime den" (implies high crime). However, when you went to the area being described, it was 99% of the time directly next to your police station.
Fortunately, it only lasted as a blip -- no increased crime, but still rather goofy.
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
All know that the highest crime locations always are in legislative government institutions, not in police stations (police choose to do their crimes far from there).
Wonder if US highest crime is geolocated in Washington.
I know maps like these are a problem in the UK for a different, systematic reason: Crimes detected at the police station after an arrest have their location marked as having taken place at that police station. eg if someone is arrested and taken back to the station, and when asked to empty their pockets drugs are discovered, then the location of that crime is in the police station building. Of course, this sort of thing will happen every day...
Makes the crime map a bit interesting...
Would you build a new police station in a crime-infested neighborhood or in a rich neighborhood that would complain about the criminals that police bring in?
I was trying to find my local store, typed in my zip, it gave me a map.
Unfortunately, it couldn't find the street, and defaulted to the geographic center of the zip code. I figured that out after driving through the 'hood with my kinds in the minivan for 30 minutes.
it makes me think less of the Napa for hiring the cheapest web devs!!!!
That's not a mistake. In LA, most of the HQ's *are* in high crime areas.
Downtown, Van Nuys, etc...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
The definition for rape on the listing seems a bit exclusive... "Rape: The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.". I understand the opposite sex may not have the same problem, but is that really a good reason to exclude them from the very definition of rape?
Here in Vancouver, Canada, one of the most drug-crime infested neighbourhoods *is* a block from the police station:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Eastside
There you have it - cops are the worst criminals... we told you for years but you didn't want to believe us... where's my tinfoil hat?
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
It makes a lot of sense to locate your police headquarters in high crime areas. The close proximity will lower response times, and the constant traffic of police through the area will discourage crimes of opportunity.
Your theory is interesting and all, but (and I know this may be a shocking concept for a Slashdot user) the actual article says what actually happened, and it's not at all like that.
Isn't it a good thing that the police station is close to an area of high crime? Would we rather they were really far away?
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Why is it surprising that the most crime in the city occurred in their headquarters? The only confusing thing is why they actually REPORTED it!?! ;)
Oddly enough, I was just looking at property in Compton. I think it'd be interesting to live there but then again $350,000+ for a place with bars on all the windows doesn't exactly seem appealing.
Well, at least they're not too far off.
Twinstiq, game news
It's hard to imagine a software glitch causing this exact behavior. And what's the problem with having Po-po HQ in a high crime area? Saves on commuting, at the very least.
AT least two police stations in my city are right in the heart of crime areas. But the rest are in less crimey areas. What's the problem?
I'm an ArcGIS user who spends time coding geographically referenced data. On occasion, I process traffic crash locations. I don't work work for LA, and have no special knowledge of their process. But from my experience...
It is quite common to only get a 90 to 95 percent match to a location with a fully automated system. Spelling errors, wrong street prefixes (N instead of S), wrong zip codes, wrong cities, etc. are all things that will cause a bad location.
For the 5 to 10 percent that fall out, we have a routine that recodes based on a) county, then b) city, then c) street.
For the last 1 percent, the locations are physically located by hand.
As you might imagine, each step in the process takes effort and human touches to code correctly. If you don't have the time or the staff, a default location may be superior to 'location unknown'.
It's crime-riddled isn't it? Ridding of something removes it, so wouldn't crime-ridden be free of crime?
Is this a reasonable price for what seems to be an interface between google maps and the dept's crime database? Somehow it seems to me that a motivated person could do the basic design and coding in a few days. Then add in user feedback, layout redesigns ,etc., but still, should it really
take even a couple of months for one person? As a crude guestimate,
I would probably feel
a little greedy or overly conservative bidding 6 months, of course I
don't know the spec
or what's really involved. What am I missing that seems to imply
two person-years or more of work?
Do you think just because someone accused or caught with an incomplete element would make them treated with kindness by a prejudice police? It is my witness that police commit more crimes than whom they assert their unlawful arrests upon. There are people caught up in such a cloud of perception that police are called, and what would be a mistaken damage of property or misplaced trust turns into an accusation by those police officers. It gets even worse, you're taken to a strange place to be held against your living will, antagonized on your mental state, forced to surrender your property, and forced into the right of a phone call with some foreign well-fed attorney to defend you on things he has no right or cause to uphold because his allegiance is to the Court and it's Majesty before any help can come to you. Think you can survive 2.5 days in Psyche-ward with no sunlight so you can be coralled through a cement corridor to a cage and have any discussion of evidence before saying your mental state of "guilty" or "not guilty" or "not my name"?
While all this happens, the shepherds moving you around enjoy all kinds of circumstantial immunity only when it suits their purpose to "help" you clear your name after hundreds upon hundreds if not thousands of dollars or pesos that you spent over 3 months trying to save. Police are satanic by their nature, and there is nothing any of you Slashdotters can convince me otherwise. They'll be the first to jump-ship from these nations and united States when they question the ability to continue their pay check. They got to tee-off somwhere with a LLC doctor and insurance salesman. Don't ask him for anything because he's just doing his job.
They can all eat shit for forcing me to sit naked in a cell for all those hours just because I wouldn't allow anyone to sign paper on my behalf and without disclosure to those contracts. They are not America, those are the United mental States of America; not here to help, just give the illusion that they are your friends so they can get that job bonus on the ticket collections and alleged "warrant" collections. You know they're buying the latest and greatest computer hardware with the spare money they collect on forcing someone else into the poorhouse. It's an American dream, because obviously you got to be dreaming to think it is of any help.
I'd have no reason to doubt it. When I lived in Shalimar Florida someone robbed the bank that's right across the street from the police department with a shotgun and weren't caught for as long as I lived there.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The map is accurate for the most part, it's just a block off.
...if the complaints are "failure to pay for donuts".
Have gnu, will travel.
They took a lesson from the French.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu
"This would effectively cut off Viet Minh soldiers fighting in Laos and force them to withdraw. "It was an attempt to interdict the
enemy's rear area, to stop the flow of supplies and reinforcements, to establish a redoubt in the enemy's rear and disrupt his lines""
Note to US planners, read some history.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Last time I parked downtown in the evening to go eat, about two blocks from the Police Headquarters, my car got burglarized. I'm guessing the map is spot on.
Western Queens show a high number of criminals, but when you eliminate nearby rikers island's prison,
it has less than average number of criminals. Many prisoners use rikers island as their mailing address.
My Mother always said "The darkest place near a lighthouse is right under the lighthouse."
This is a translation so it doesn't flow as well as the original.
Here in the Land of Pleasant Living (and also the setting for Homicide and The Wire), Baltimore's main Police HQ is set between President, Fayette, Gay, and Baltimore Streets. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, the corner of Gay and Baltimore Street is one end of the city's infamous and long standing red light district, and Police HQ backs up to the heart of "The Block". One side of Baltimore Street are strip clubs and streetwalkers, along with the ever-present junkies, pickpockets, and pimps. The other side is the back of Police HQ, and parking is reserved for squad cars of Baltimore's Finest bringing in Baltimore's Worst at all hours of the day and night.
An old saying says "if you want to commit a crime, do it on the steps of the Police Station ... no on will see you."
They say they're doing the best they can with the software which they have. Maybe they should switch to open source so they can fix their problems. Like GeoServer?
Grand Theft Auto is not a crime. Its just grand larceny where the object stolen was a car. "Car/Auto Theft" would be accurate. Its just sad to see a $362K project not be able to even get that correct. I wish that term would stop being repeated as an actual crime. Thanks big media its just a video game.
neorush
This story might not be as surprising as it first seems.
Anyone who has been to Vancouver can tell you that by far the most crime-ridden part of the city - we are talking Main St. & Hastings - surrounds the police station and has done so for time immemorial.
Admittedly Main & Hastings is not the most dangerous area since the crime we are talking about is mainly drugs and prostitution. And I believe they have recently moved the central offices of the station to a new location (near Broadway?).
Apparently
Aren't the vast majority of traffic accidents that people get into very near their home?
Basically, police are around the police station more than they're far away from it. They start their shift there and end their shift there. It's the hub of activity for police. So of course the high crime areas are going to appear as if they're near the police station. "Low hanging fruit" is the term for this I think. Why drive miles away from "home base" to make arrests when there's stuff going on right in your front/back yard?
One of my very good friend's dad is a police officer. Now chief of police of a small town, but when he was younger he worked in Chicago. There was a public housing project there called Cabrini Green. It was so violent, crime-riddled, and gang-controlled that very few, if any, police officers dared enter. Obviously, on a crime tracking system like this, it would appear as if this was one of the most crime-free places in the city, because so few arrests were made there, when in actuality the crimes there were at a higher frequency and more brutal.
Is it because they are counting the staff at the LAPD as criminals?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Fat ass cops can't make it much farther than a block, so of course most of the (known) crime is less than a block away!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Well when I was visiting Vancouver I decided to pay a visit to the police museum. Ironically I walked down a street full of druggies and day time hookers, which was about 300 yards from the main police station. Maybe its keeping your friends close and your enemies closer ;)
It seems to me that having a police-station in certain areas might in-fact increase certain types of crime.
For example, perp is picked up, brought back to station, questioned, released, etc.
Upon exiting the station, he realizes he needs a ride home, or a fix, or whatever. So he wanders a few blocks down and steals a car, robs a bank, or buys some drugs, etc.
Kind of like bank robber Willy Sutton. When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton simply replied, "Because that's where the money is."
Most bank robberies occur near banks, so most crime should happen near police stations.
Amongst my several different experiences with the incompetence and criminality that is the LAPD, they were perusing my belongings one day whilst I was locked in the back of one of their cars. They got pretty excited about a crate of Thompson smg magazines &c. that I had. Once they determined that I hadn't committed any crimes they could prove and went away, imagine my surprise to discover that one box of .357 and two boxes of .45 caliber Black Talon ammunition had found a new, better qualified, owner. When the shmoogs set fire to the shopping centers and called it an "uprising", I didn't condone it, but I understood what they were talking about.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I guess thats the distance from the donut shop to the station.
Isn't it a good thing that the police station is close to an area of high crime?
Yeah it might be a good thing if there really were more crime there. It was a glitch due to default settings when there was no address specified in a report that made it falsely appear that there was a high crime rate a block from the station.
The enemies of Democracy are
I grew up in Wasilla, AK. The moment we got our own local police force (instead of relying on the State Troopers), our crime rate skyrocketed--because now we had someone to report all the petty stuff to. So this makes perfect sense, if you've got a substation close, it's easy to walk in and report something. Otherwise you just might not bother with a small crime.
It grinds you down.
First, there are crimes which are very hard to say where it ocurred such as corruption or money washing.
One another observation is that you have to trust the methods cops gather this data. For example in Brazil it is know that some cops carry non-identified dead bodies to other district aereas so that a crime is not reported in their disctrict. That way they diminish the crime rates in their districts but raise in someonelse's
Crime maps usually display where a crime has been reported - not where it occurred. While this is sometime one-in-the-same, it is not always the case. As a result, many crime maps show hospitals as high crime areas. An anecdote I've heard was a sexual assault that was mapped to a neighborhood. A local resident was concerned and contacted the police. In reality, the assault took place at a distant location, but was reported when the individual returned home. Reporting organizations need to do a better job of identifying the crime location vs. the report location.