Arash Kamiar: The Curry Campaign is Fear Mongering

[TheCat]

Those are the big errors, but the second part of Arash's argument, that there's no connection between police manpower on the streets and crime, also contains has problems.

As can be seen by comparing the crime rates to the officer figures, it's just not correct. The drop in crime in the late 90s came after a substantial increase in officers as well as civilian hires, which allowed Sheriff Glover to move cops from desk jobs back to the streets. As I said before, the drop in crime after 2009 (after several years of increases) came along with more officer hires and the Jacksonville Journey, which devoted $30 million to tackling the problem (this has been reduced to $2.1 million). The increase in violent crime since 2011 came along, unsurprisingly, as Brown cut dozens of officers, eliminated all the community service officers, and proposed cutting hundreds more cops.

It's funny that the piece accuses Curry of "fear mongering" considering that the whole thing is an attempt to make Curry look bad, and to deflect one of the main criticisms against Brown. I always thought this was an odd strategy on Brown's part, it just looked like he was trying to pretend a problem wasn't a problem. Obviously it didn't convince too many people.

I brought this up with Ennis before, but Metro Jacksonville should issue a correction for the inaccurate claims presented in this piece.

You still haven't shown big errors, or small ones for that matter.

If you would like me to issue a correction on behalf FDLE population numbers, I suppose I can look into that.

I think it's funny that you think it's funny. It's funny how you think that the op-ed providing historical context to crime is the same thing as Curry making it seem like Jacksonville is headed towards "Mad Jax", if you will. 

Anyway,

I feel like Jacksonville Journey is a net positive for our city. I have no idea if it is or isn't and neither do you but i suppose we can both feel that way.

Let's be clear on what you (and, maybe even I) are saying...

You are saying, the people who committed crimes would have otherwise not have committed those crimes if Jacksonville Journey was funded.

You are saying, the 600+ more violent crimes that occurred from 2013 to 2014 would have been prevented if we had invested $30 million or so in Jacksonville Journey.

You are saying, that those individuals that committed crimes would have been a part of the key  demographics that Jacksonville Journey focused on within the last three to four years, in which they were underfunded.

Maybe?

Let's look at some numbers. This is the Violent Crime Total (not the rate) since 1985.




Except for a few blips there is a steady decline in Violent Crime since 1986. In 2007, a leap in violent crime that bucked the trend (side note, 2006 is when Baldwin abandoned their police force and JSO took over).

If a program is so effective that it can be credited for reducing crime by 33 percent in two years, from 2007 to 2009, we should probably continue to reduce JSO in size in order to pump money into Jacksonville Journey. That's a phenomenal result.

My understanding is JJ launched earlier than 2009. This is a link announcing JJ in 12/07.

http://qa-www.coj.net/Departments/The-Jacksonville-Journey/Journey-Take-A-Step-Historical-Information/Steering-Committee/Press-Conference.aspx


Then again, if I look at the Violent Crime Total in 2006 and again in 2009, the trend downward continues as though there wasn't a spike in 2007 and 2008 at all, which is consistent with the downward trend we have seen over the last 30 years.

And, of course, there is probably much more to the "Brown didn't fund JJ" talk track. Soon, we'll have a report that JJ was never actually funded at $30 million and that is the reason COJ has money magically appearing in their accounts.   

[Tacachale]

Those are the big errors, but the second part of Arash's argument, that there's no connection between police manpower on the streets and crime, also contains has problems.

As can be seen by comparing the crime rates to the officer figures, it's just not correct. The drop in crime in the late 90s came after a substantial increase in officers as well as civilian hires, which allowed Sheriff Glover to move cops from desk jobs back to the streets. As I said before, the drop in crime after 2009 (after several years of increases) came along with more officer hires and the Jacksonville Journey, which devoted $30 million to tackling the problem (this has been reduced to $2.1 million). The increase in violent crime since 2011 came along, unsurprisingly, as Brown cut dozens of officers, eliminated all the community service officers, and proposed cutting hundreds more cops.

It's funny that the piece accuses Curry of "fear mongering" considering that the whole thing is an attempt to make Curry look bad, and to deflect one of the main criticisms against Brown. I always thought this was an odd strategy on Brown's part, it just looked like he was trying to pretend a problem wasn't a problem. Obviously it didn't convince too many people.

I brought this up with Ennis before, but Metro Jacksonville should issue a correction for the inaccurate claims presented in this piece.

You still haven't shown big errors, or small ones for that matter.

If you would like me to issue a correction on behalf FDLE population numbers, I suppose I can look into that.

Yes, relying on those crime rate stats that are based on faulty population counts is a problem. The bigger problem is that the piece makes all these claims as if they're based on different data, when really it's just another year out of date. Your argument is that Curry's claims were contradicted by your evidence, but the reality is that your evidence was faulty. You say things like, "Since Mayor Alvin Brown has been in office there has been a 1 percent decrease in total violent crime and a 2.4 percent decrease in the violent crime rate", which is false. It's out of date. All the neat graphs and charts are also out of date. And everything about crime rates is both out of date and based on bad data.

I think it's funny that you think it's funny. It's funny how you think that the op-ed providing historical context to crime is the same thing as Curry making it seem like Jacksonville is headed towards "Mad Jax", if you will. 

I don't have any problem with you writing an op-ed. I did it too. I do have a problem with Metro Jacksonville running a piece that contains so much problematic data and so many factual errors. It makes the site look bad. I assure you I'm not the only one who thinks that.

There was also a problem with tone and perspective in the front page pieces and the forum postings throughout the campaign season, which also make the site look bad, but that's a conversation for elsewhere.

Anyway,

I feel like Jacksonville Journey is a net positive for our city. I have no idea if it is or isn't and neither do you but i suppose we can both feel that way.

Let's be clear on what you (and, maybe even I) are saying...

You are saying, the people who committed crimes would have otherwise not have committed those crimes if Jacksonville Journey was funded.

You are saying, the 600+ more violent crimes that occurred from 2013 to 2014 would have been prevented if we had invested $30 million or so in Jacksonville Journey.

You are saying, that those individuals that committed crimes would have been a part of the key  demographics that Jacksonville Journey focused on within the last three to four years, in which they were underfunded.

Maybe?

Let's look at some numbers. This is the Violent Crime Total (not the rate) since 1985.




Except for a few blips there is a steady decline in Violent Crime since 1986. In 2007, a leap in violent crime that bucked the trend (side note, 2006 is when Baldwin abandoned their police force and JSO took over).

If a program is so effective that it can be credited for reducing crime by 33 percent in two years, from 2007 to 2009, we should probably continue to reduce JSO in size in order to pump money into Jacksonville Journey. That's a phenomenal result.

My understanding is JJ launched earlier than 2009. This is a link announcing JJ in 12/07.

http://qa-www.coj.net/Departments/The-Jacksonville-Journey/Journey-Take-A-Step-Historical-Information/Steering-Committee/Press-Conference.aspx


Then again, if I look at the Violent Crime Total in 2006 and again in 2009, the trend downward continues as though there wasn't a spike in 2007 and 2008 at all, which is consistent with the downward trend we have seen over the last 30 years.

And, of course, there is probably much more to the "Brown didn't fund JJ" talk track. Soon, we'll have a report that JJ was never actually funded at $30 million and that is the reason COJ has money magically appearing in their accounts.   

Jacksonville Journey was established in 2007 but most programs kicked off in January 2009. I'm sure I can dig up something to that effect. It was launched because crime was rising in years leading up to it, particularly in some categories (murder was especially bad at that time). Crime went down for several years after JJ got going; murder plummeted. Now that the programs have been cut and officers are off the street (not entirely due to Brown, but the last four budgets were his), crime has risen again since 2011. Do you really not believe there's a connection there?

[tufsu1]

Yes, blaming the Sheriff for everything was Brown's other tactic. It was even worse, as it just opened the door for the Sheriff to say, "well you set the budgets, you cut dozens of officers and Jacksonville Journey, you haven't solved the pension, and now violent crime is up." I imagine that's what led to the second claim, as articulated here, that our crime problem simply doesn't exist. But it creates a real mixed message: is crime a real problem that's the Sheriff's fault, or is it not really a problem after all?

you conveniently ignore that the Mayor (and Council) gave the Sheriff authorization to re-hire 80 officers...and he chose not to do it!

[TheCat]

Even if you look at the crime rates by using population estimates from BEBR and the Census, the rates are similar.

This table shows that the violent crime rate dropped every year of Browns term except for 2014.

This is for DUVAL county as a whole. If I get a chance I'll look at the rates before 2010 and for Jacksonville. 

The discrepancy in FDLE's 2010 pop. number in comparison to BEBR and the Census is curious.

[TheCat]

Yes, relying on those crime rate stats that are based on faulty population counts is a problem. The bigger problem is that the piece makes all these claims as if they're based on different data, when really it's just another year out of date. Your argument is that Curry's claims were contradicted by your evidence, but the reality is that your evidence was faulty. You say things like, "Since Mayor Alvin Brown has been in office there has been a 1 percent decrease in total violent crime and a 2.4 percent decrease in the violent crime rate", which is false. It's out of date. All the neat graphs and charts are also out of date. And everything about crime rates is both out of date and based on bad data.

Please refer the chart above. False and "out of date" are two different things.

I didn't say Curry's claims are wrong. I said Curry's claims are not the whole picture.

Tachahale, you are totally incorrect. It's not bad data. Now the last 4 years of the FDLE population estimates are cross referenced with BEBR and the Census you should feel a bit more comfortable in being able to say, "we had record low crime rates."

I'll say this again, even when you include 2014 and look at the total amount of violent crimes in Jacksonville, it shows us that it was the 5th lowest year in violent crime that we have had in the last 30 years. 

Please fact-check.

I don't have any problem with you writing an op-ed. I did it too. I do have a problem with Metro Jacksonville running a piece that contains so much problematic data and so many factual errors. It makes the site look bad. I assure you I'm not the only one who thinks that.

There was also a problem with tone and perspective in the front page pieces and the forum postings throughout the campaign season, which also make the site look bad, but that's a conversation for elsewhere.

You still haven't shown on piece of problematic data. The legitimate complain you have is that 2014 was not included. It wasn't included because it wasn't available to me. FDLE had not published it. As, well, I was (and am) more interested in crime rates than I am total numbers.

I appreciate the feedback on tone.

Jacksonville Journey was established in 2007 but most programs kicked off in January 2009. I'm sure I can dig up something to that effect. It was launched because crime was rising in years leading up to it, particularly in some categories (murder was especially bad at that time). Crime went down for several years after JJ got going; murder plummeted. Now that the programs have been cut and officers are off the street (not entirely due to Brown, but the last four budgets were his), crime has risen again since 2011. Do you really not believe there's a connection there?

I don't know if there is a connection. It's certainly worth considering. I have a bias towards JJ.

Still, if JJ is the reason for the increase why did it feel like this became an issue about not having more cops on the street.

I said it previously, if JJ is responsible for the 33 percent decline in violent crime, that's a big deal.

[Tacachale]

wait a minute.
you are comparing the percentage of violent crime compared to the total number of crimes committed? so basically looking at the velocity of increase on a year by year basis.

but you want everyone to pretend that crime hasn't been steadily going down since the eighties despite the population fluctuations?

Im sorry taca, but you've lost me in the thread here.

Curry was fear mongering, plain and simple.

And his only comeback was that Alvin Brown didn't seem to know he was bullshitting so how can Curry's campaign team be at fault for bullshitting?

Which by inductive reasoning kind of kills the argument that Curry's expert team is any better at understanding these numbers than Alvins.

I'm not shocked that you're lost

I'm looking at the changes in violent crimes committed per year. Overall, the trend has been an overall decrease for many years. That's a national trend, and it's continued elsewhere in Florida outside Jax. That's why it's alarming when we see continued increases. And yes, we have seen increases in two of the three years we're looking at of Brown's term (2015 isn't over yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it beats even last year).

[Tacachale]

Even if you look at the crime rates by using population estimates from BEBR and the Census, the rates are similar.

This table shows that the violent crime rate dropped every year of Browns term except for 2014.

This is for DUVAL county as a whole. If I get a chance I'll look at the rates before 2010 and for Jacksonville. 

The discrepancy in FDLE's 2010 pop. number in comparison to BEBR and the Census is curious.

Honestly, if you put together a table like that in your original article, I probably never would have raised this issue. Hell, if Brown's people had been savvy enough to put something like that together, he may not have suffered so badly on the crime issue. It leads one to wonder why they didn't do that.

It still does show a 10% increase in violent crime rate in 2014 as well as a numeric increase in total crimes in 2013 and 2014, over 2011. And when you look at the three categories Curry included in all his ads (murder, rape and assault) that's where the increases lie (as I said a while ago, robbery, the fourth violent crime category, has been down).

[Tacachale]

Yes, blaming the Sheriff for everything was Brown's other tactic. It was even worse, as it just opened the door for the Sheriff to say, "well you set the budgets, you cut dozens of officers and Jacksonville Journey, you haven't solved the pension, and now violent crime is up." I imagine that's what led to the second claim, as articulated here, that our crime problem simply doesn't exist. But it creates a real mixed message: is crime a real problem that's the Sheriff's fault, or is it not really a problem after all?

you conveniently ignore that the Mayor (and Council) gave the Sheriff authorization to re-hire 80 officers...and he chose not to do it!

I "ignored" it because it was moonshine. First, it was 40 cops, and 40 CSOs, after he had cut 76 cops (being charitable here) and all 91 CSOs. They didn't end up doing it because the entire budget was based on borrowing even more and dipping into reserves to pay recurring expenses.

Going that way just allowed Curry to hammer Brown on his budgets. Thinking about it, I guess this whole issue was just a no win situation for Brown.