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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
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?
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
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'.
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?
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.
Sure, but you also sort of hope that locating the police station there has some impact on the crime rates.
(neither of our comments are particularly relevant here, the story is about a data entry problem, not about concentrated crime)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
...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"
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.
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?).
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.
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.