[geeks] What desk toy or "tchotchke" says "geek" to you?

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 @ 10:10 +0000, Mike Meredith said:

> > Keep in mind, other countries often have a habit of lying about their
> > stats.
> > 
> > The US is one of the most open and honest countries in the world.
> 
> That seems to me a clear indication that you believe that crime stats
> from the US can be trusted to have honest crime stats, 

Yes, but please note I'm not saying the government will be honest about what
is in them.

> but 'other countries' can't. As 'other countries' includes the UK, I'm
> somewhat irritated by you unsubstantiated claim.

No, other countries is a highly unspecific phrase.

The UK is very good at record keeping, and I don't recall saying otherwise. I
don't know that they are as open in giving it out, but that could be because
I'm not a UK citizen. A lot of US police operations are direct descendents of
UK operations.

Just about anyone can get US data easily, even our enemies.

Biased reports of crime happen everywhere, but I see a more of the "we have
no crime" notions from Europe than I see from the UK or the USA, and I don't
think it is valid.

I also see most of this in the USA from local governent rather than state or
federal, though some of that depends on the agency in question.

> > Yes, he does, because it is required by law.
> 
> No she doesn't. She can probably lookup the figures in a database
> somewhere, but that doesn't mean she has an accurate figure in her head
> in case she's buttonholed in some bar somewhere. 

Who is she? Are you being politically correct here by using the wrong pronoun
for a neutral reference?

Also, what does a cop in a bar have to do with getting crime stats?

I said they have the stats and are required to keep them.

How did a female cop in a bar get into the discussion?

> > Elementary statistical groundwork. If you ever read a report where
> > they didn't account for this, then they didn't know what they were
> > doing.
> 
> Sure, but with even with the best groundwork you can't do more than come
> up with a flimsy hypothesis about the level of crime in an area based on
> the number of arrests.

They number of arrests cannot be high if crime is simultaneously low.

Unless of course, you think there are enough crooked cops to keep that up.

It's quite hard to arrest a large number of innocent people and keep your
badge.

> Which is why in the UK, crime statistics are based on the number of
> recorded crimes reported by the police.

Arrest records can mean two different things, and I thought it was obvious I
didn't mean individual arrest records, or even criminal records.

Individual arrest records are records of physical arrest. Those won't
(usually) give you any idea about convictions, recorded crimes, etc. There
are also individual criminal records, which should show your convictions,
sentencing, etc.

I didn't think I needed to spell out that I wasn't talking about that.

People often call the whole ball of wax "arrest records". I thought I also
refered to it as crime stats, but maybe I didn't.

In some departments, arrest records might even include all the other
information, especially since most of it has been moved to database systems.

> > The bigger problem is crimes that don't result in an arrest, often
> > because of technicalities that shouldn't exist.
> 
> More commonly because the police don't know who the criminal is. After
> all unless you catch someone dripping with blood, catching criminals is
> a pretty difficult job.

No, that's not what I mean.  I mean technicalities which have nothing to
do with real evidence.  For example, a lawyer trying to get damning
evidence thrown out because a word was mispelled.  That sort of thing.

Or, maybe, a defendent pretending he can't get a pair of gloves on by
stretching his hand out so they won't fit.

It's also interesting that in the UK, all legitimate evidence is
admissable.  In the US, legitimate but illegally obtained evidence is
not admissable.

It seems a better idea to use the evidence, and punish the offender who
obtained it illegally in a seperate case.

> > > A politician lied ? Oh dear! Well it's hardly new, and has no
> > > relevance on crime figures.
> > 
> > I didn't say it did. It was an example of how a government can care
> > little for what its own numbers say.
> 
> No it's an example of how a politician doesn't care for what the figures
> say. I don't know about the US, but the UK government isn't a monolithic
> mass of politicians. Statistics are gathered by government departments
> staffed by career civil servants who are supposed to be politically
> neutral. Could the Home Office ministers cook the figures ? Possibly,
> but it wouldn't stay secret for very long.

This is just playing with words.

"A government" generally refers to the current leadership.

The rest of the big mass we refer to with the single word "government" is a
mix of agencies and contractors doing work authorized by the leadership.

If you don't see it that way, that's fine, the language is imprecise to
begin with.

I mean the leadership, not everything under it.

That should be clear enough.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["It's a damn poor mind that can only think
of one way to spell a word." -- Andrew Jackson]