Arash Kamiar: The Curry Campaign is Fear Mongering

[TheCat]

The 2014 numbers don't look good. Murders went up to 96 from 93 in 2013 and 71 in 2011. Rapes shot up to 479 from 452 in 2013 and 350 in 2011. Robbery, which you don't really get into, was actually down, while aggravated assault was up. Looking at the UCR data, violent crime has, in fact, trended up since 2011, in the figures and percentages reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Sheriff, and Curry. These statements accurately reflect the reported trends in violent crime during Mayor Brown's tenure.

The article removes the figures from their context as well. Violent crime was on the rise prior to the creation of the Jacksonville Journey under Mayor Peyton in 2009. From that point, violent crime started a serious decline that continued into 2011. However, the budget for Jacksonville Journey has dropped from $30 million in 2009 to $2.1 million this year (not entirely due to Brown, but he's been in charge of the last four budgets). Additionally, dozens of cops have been cut, many of them due to Brown (the debate the exact number continues elsewhere). Brown actually proposed cutting 300 more officers. Unsurprisingly, violent crime has been up during each year. Additionally, as jbliii has said, it appears the trend is continuing this year as well. If you don't believe we've got a serious crime problem on our hands, you must be living in a different city.

Violent crime rate for Duval continued to decline from 2011 - 2013. We increased by nearly 10 percent in 2014.

Maybe? Did Jacksonville Journey really cause a reduction in violent crime? It's possible that it contributed. I don't think you can make that claim.


If you look at the violent crime rate you'll see that crime has steadily declined since 1997. Except for three years; 2000, 2007 and 2014 the violent crime rate has decreased. In 1995, the violent crime rate was 1,369 per 100k people. In 2014, the VCR was 692 per 100k people. 

That's the context. I didn't strip it away.

My argument is the Curry Campaign stripped away the context. They were not honest about where crime is today in relationship to historical trends.

Also, although Curry was not explicit in this claim, the implication was crime increased because Brown cut 147 officers. We know now that that is untrue. Further, we have had more crime with more police on the force in our history.

Does Brown receive accolades for recognizing that we can do more with less?

Curry's campaign made it seem like our crime levels were astonishingly high. They aren't. Again, we are in a record low season.

I stand by my premise, the Curry Campaign was fear mongering. If you are going to condemn Brown for the increase, you have to give him accolades for the record low numbers in crime that we experienced.

[TheCat]

I'm curious what you mean with this statement:

2011 is an interesting year. That year we lost 4 percent of our population, around 36,000 people, the first "significant" decrease since 1995 (there was a .49 percent decrease from 2008 to 2009).

According to the Census estimates, there were 823,291 people in Jax in 2010 and 829,065 in 2011. That's a *gain* of 5774. Similarly, the population grew from 809,891 in 2008 to 813,518 in 2009.

Even if it were true, it's hard to tell what your point is with this statement.

According to FDLE, duval county population:

2010: 901,271
2011: 864,601

Find it on this link. Click on any of the "Violent index crimes".

https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/content/getdoc/ad060310-e277-4dc7-b6d5-9a26f582f481/Duval.aspx

[tufsu1]

^ the data is incorrect.  I go with updated BEBR and Census stats on population

[thelakelander]

^ the data is incorrect.  I go with updated BEBR and Census stats on population

It's not just incorrect. It's WAAAYYYY off. The official 2010 Census count for Duval was 864k. Seems like the FDLE was way off on their 2010 estimate and the 2011 number accounts for a correction based off the official 2010 Census data.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

^ the data is incorrect.  I go with updated BEBR and Census stats on population

It's not just incorrect. It's WAAAYYYY off. The official 2010 Census count for Duval was 864k. Seems like the FDLE was way off on their 2010 estimate and the 2011 number accounts for a correction based off the official 2010 Census data.

I saw that too, but we don't have their (BEBR) 2010 Estimate to go off of, at least not on the front page.  Admittedly, I didn't do any real digging. 

https://www.bebr.ufl.edu/population/products

It appears that the 2011 FDLE numbers are based off of the 2011 BEBR estimate as well, though the actual census numbers posted in 2012 were much closer.

[Tacachale]

Tacahale, sorry for my very delayed response:

Arash, you say that while Curry (accurately) cited the Sheriff's Report on Violent Crime and Manpower, you're using other sources, including the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics report. You don't say that in fact, both sources are using the same figures from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data. There are two differences I can see: you're including some crimes from the Beaches that the Sheriff's Report omits, and more significantly, as others have said, the BJS has incomplete data for 2014, while the Sheriff's Report has the figures. Leaving out 2014 is an inexplicable oversight.

I included all of Duval County in my report. It would be "inexplicable" if I included JSOs numbers, which does not include all of Duval County.

My apologies for not saying that both data sets are "UCR" numbers. Although JSO is the reporting agency I feel more comfortable using the data once it has been published by FDLE and UCR directly.

Sorry, but I don't buy this. It seems more likely you just misread the two sources as giving different figures, when in reality they give the same figures, with the JSO report excluding the Beaches but including 2014. If you didn't want to use the JSO report, the numbers shouldn't have been too hard for a reporter to get. At least you should have been clear that you weren't including 2014 (though of course that means the entire piece is a year and a half out of date).

BUT...

Let's look at JSO's report.

So, the Curry campaign felt like Brown was at fault for the increase in crime from 2013 to 2014. Is he equally responsible for bringing about the record lows in crime during his tenure? That's what we experienced during Brown's admin.

The "Violent Crime Total" lowest years

2011: 5,182
2012: 5,189
2013: 5,246
2010: 5,469
2014: 5,853

Of the top lowest "violent crime total" numbers, Brown was in office four out of those five years. Three years, if you don't want to count 2011.

When you look at "murder" we had a record low number, 71 killed, in 2011. The last time the number of murders in our city was in the 70s was in 2001, 75 were killed.

This is the report from UCR from 1985 – 2012.

http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/Local/RunCrimeJurisbyJurisLarge.cfm

For whatever reason the data analysis tool is not updated to include 2013 and 2014 but you can add the JSO numbers from the report.

Even if you look at 2014, our violent crime rate is low. It has increased from 2013 but it is, again, very low. 2014, is the 5th lowest year of violent crime since 1985.

And, it was accomplished with less police.

There's the rub. The numbers are wrong: crime isn't down. However, your further comments reveal what the discrepancy is. The FDLE's crime indexes and rates are based on faulty population data. This one isn't really on you, it looks like you reported their numbers faithfully (again, through 2013).

This comment exposes the problem:

I'm curious what you mean with this statement:

2011 is an interesting year. That year we lost 4 percent of our population, around 36,000 people, the first "significant" decrease since 1995 (there was a .49 percent decrease from 2008 to 2009).

According to the Census estimates, there were 823,291 people in Jax in 2010 and 829,065 in 2011. That's a *gain* of 5774. Similarly, the population grew from 809,891 in 2008 to 813,518 in 2009.

Even if it were true, it's hard to tell what your point is with this statement.

According to FDLE, duval county population:

2010: 901,271
2011: 864,601

Find it on this link. Click on any of the "Violent index crimes".

https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/content/getdoc/ad060310-e277-4dc7-b6d5-9a26f582f481/Duval.aspx

I don't know where the FDLE is getting its population figures from, but as tufsu1 and thelakelander say, it's out of step with the Census population estimates. Here are the Census estimates for Duval County:

2010: 864,263
2011: 872,294
2012: 880,595
2013: 887,322
2014: 897,698

http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

The FDLE is off in every single year, meaning the crime rates per 100k people are also off.

Now, I'm not about to try and re-estimate the crime rate based on these numbers. Folks smarter than me can try that. That just leaves us with the bare numbers, and you don't have to be all that smart to see the increase from these figures:

2011 violent crimes
Murder: 71
Rape: 350
Aggravated Assault: 3,183
Total Violent Crimes: 5,182

... to these figures:

2014 violent crimes
Murder: 96
Rape: 479
Aggravated Assault: 3,859
Total Violent Crimes: 5,853

[Tacachale]

so you don't know what the real numbers are, your just sure that the curry campaign was truthful about them?

I know what I read from the Sheriff's report and the FDLE, and the Curry campaign accurately reported the available numbers indicating that murder, rape and assault were up through Brown's term.

[Tacachale]

so you don't know what the real numbers are, your just sure that the curry campaign was truthful about them?

I know what I read from the Sheriff's report and the FDLE, and the Curry campaign accurately reported the available numbers indicating that murder, rape and assault were up through Brown's term.

so, 'explosion of violent crime' would be accurate?

Well, I wouldn't call substantial increases in violent crime a "Picnic at Gumdrop Junction".

[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.

[tufsu1]

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 think it is far more disingenuous for Curry to have blamed the Mayor for the rise in crime while not ever looking at the Sheriff that endorsed and campaigned for him.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

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 think it is far more disingenuous for Curry to have blamed the Mayor for the rise in crime while not ever looking at the Sheriff that endorsed and campaigned for him.

And pointing fingers at the mayor for cutting the funding for 147 budgeted positions.  Why on earth were those positions unfilled?  How many officers does the mayor typically hire?  Who's responsibility is it to ensure that their department is capably staffed to do the task at hand?

Last question:  How can you justify requesting a budget increase when you've been doing such a fantastic job with less than what you're already allotted?   

[TheCat]

Sorry, but I don't buy this. It seems more likely you just misread the two sources as giving different figures, when in reality they give the same figures, with the JSO report excluding the Beaches but including 2014. If you didn't want to use the JSO report, the numbers shouldn't have been too hard for a reporter to get. At least you should have been clear that you weren't including 2014 (though of course that means the entire piece is a year and a half out of date).

I'm not selling anything, so we're good.

It's pretty clear that I didn't include 2014 since it wasn't included.

I'll go back and re-read my piece but I'm pretty sure that I said  Curry wasn't making his numbers up. He was, as you said of me, "stripping it of context."

First of all, Curry placed blame on Brown for a spike in crime, which is a little disingenuous. Then, the implication was that the reason we had a spike in crime was because we had fewer police on the force, which is also disingenuous.

Especially since, during Brown's tenure we saw lowest violent crime TOTALS since at least 1985.

Do you disagree that from 2011 - 2014 the violent crime TOTAL were the lowest we have seen in 29 years?

Was there a spike in crime? Yes. Is it because Brown did what...? Seriously, how did he cause the crime incrase? Was it because he didn't replace the police assigned to schools and the port?

What Curry did would be like me blaming Delaney for a spike in crime in 2011, a nearly 13 percent increase. The last three years of Delaney's term the murders increased by 22% from 75 murders in 2001 to 92 in 2003.   

There's the rub. The numbers are wrong: crime isn't down. However, your further comments reveal what the discrepancy is. The FDLE's crime indexes and rates are based on faulty population data. This one isn't really on you, it looks like you reported their numbers faithfully (again, through 2013).

This comment exposes the problem:

The numbers are not wrong.

I understand the conversation about FDLE having wrong population numbers which messes with the crime rate.

That's interesting and requires more looking into but half of my response included total numbers, which is not based on a rate. The piece included not just the rate but also the total numbers, side by side to each other.

I wrote the following in my last reponse:

BUT...

Let's look at JSO's report.

So, the Curry campaign felt like Brown was at fault for the increase in crime from 2013 to 2014. Is he equally responsible for bringing about the record lows in crime during his tenure? That's what we experienced during Brown's admin.

The "Violent Crime Total" lowest years

2011: 5,182
2012: 5,189
2013: 5,246
2010: 5,469
2014: 5,853

Of the top lowest "violent crime total" numbers, Brown was in office four out of those five years. Three years, if you don't want to count 2011.

When you look at "murder" we had a record low number, 71 killed, in 2011. The last time the number of murders in our city was in the 70s was in 2001, 75 were killed.

This is the report from UCR from 1985 – 2012.

http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/Local/RunCrimeJurisbyJurisLarge.cfm

For whatever reason the data analysis tool is not updated to include 2013 and 2014 but you can add the JSO numbers from the report.

Even if you look at 2014, our violent crime rate is low. It has increased from 2013 but it is, again, very low. 2014, is the 5th lowest year of violent crime since 1985.

And, it was accomplished with less police.

The "Violent Crime Total" lowest years

2011: 5,182
2012: 5,189
2013: 5,246
2010: 5,469
2014: 5,853

These figures are the Total Number of violent crime Not the rate of violent crime. So, my greater point, which I think you keep ignoring is that even when we look at 2014 we see that it is 5th lowest "violent crime total" year since 1985!

If we keep looking we see that Brown was in office 4 out of the 5 lowest years in violent crime since 1985.

So, you want to make the claim that Brown was the cause of the crime increases?  Maybe he also deserves an award for overseeing the lowest levels of violent crime this city has ever seen?

There's the rub. The numbers are wrong: crime isn't down. However, your further comments reveal what the discrepancy is. The FDLE's crime indexes and rates are based on faulty population data. This one isn't really on you, it looks like you reported their numbers faithfully (again, through 2013).

Again, the numbers aren't wrong. Even when you look at total crime figures, independent of the population, the last five years have been low.

Just to be clear, I think this is all asinine. I think crime reports have to be looked with a gigantic grain of salt. I also think the debate over increases and decreases only matter in light of trends.

Just to be even more clear, I am not arguing that Brown is the cause of lowered crime. I'm arguing that Curry was mongering fear by using a spike in crime that happened during one the lowest seasons of crime this city has ever seen.

Then, what does this mean according to you or Curry? In 2014 the violent crime total was 5,853 an increase of 607 instances of violent crime from 2013. What's Curry's solution? Hire 147 more police to combat 607 more instances of violent crime? Yeah, that will be effective  .

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Hire 147 more police to combat 607 more instances of violent crime? Yeah, that will be effective  .

Cat, as we discussed, this is one of the most mis-used figures in the entire debate.

Allow me to re-phrase for you:

Budget 147 more unfilled police positions to combat 607 more instances of violent crime? Yeah, that will be effective  .

[Tacachale]

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 think it is far more disingenuous for Curry to have blamed the Mayor for the rise in crime while not ever looking at the Sheriff that endorsed and campaigned for him.

And pointing fingers at the mayor for cutting the funding for 147 budgeted positions.  Why on earth were those positions unfilled?  How many officers does the mayor typically hire?  Who's responsibility is it to ensure that their department is capably staffed to do the task at hand?

Last question:  How can you justify requesting a budget increase when you've been doing such a fantastic job with less than what you're already allotted?

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?

[Tacachale]

Sorry, but I don't buy this. It seems more likely you just misread the two sources as giving different figures, when in reality they give the same figures, with the JSO report excluding the Beaches but including 2014. If you didn't want to use the JSO report, the numbers shouldn't have been too hard for a reporter to get. At least you should have been clear that you weren't including 2014 (though of course that means the entire piece is a year and a half out of date).

I'm not selling anything, so we're good.

It's pretty clear that I didn't include 2014 since it wasn't included.

I'll go back and re-read my piece but I'm pretty sure that I said  Curry wasn't making his numbers up. He was, as you said of me, "stripping it of context."

All my comments are directed at what appeared in the piece. That's what's important, as it's the thing that ran on the MJ front page and went out before the election.

You do say that Curry accurately reports the numbers from the Sheriff. However, you say that you use other sources (FDLE and BJS) that reveal different conclusions: that "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."

What you don't say is that the sources have essentially the same data, but that yours are a year and a half out of date. You'd draw pretty much the same conclusion based on any of the sources if they were up to date.

First of all, Curry placed blame on Brown for a spike in crime, which is a little disingenuous. Then, the implication was that the reason we had a spike in crime was because we had fewer police on the force, which is also disingenuous.

Especially since, during Brown's tenure we saw lowest violent crime TOTALS since at least 1985.

Do you disagree that from 2011 - 2014 the violent crime TOTAL were the lowest we have seen in 29 years?

Was there a spike in crime? Yes. Is it because Brown did what...? Seriously, how did he cause the crime incrase? Was it because he didn't replace the police assigned to schools and the port?

What Curry did would be like me blaming Delaney for a spike in crime in 2011, a nearly 13 percent increase. The last three years of Delaney's term the murders increased by 22% from 75 murders in 2001 to 92 in 2003.   

I don't know, it could well be that crime is at a low since 1985. I'm no expert, but clearly crime stats fluctuate over time. There are historical, national, and statewide trends, there are differences in reporting. To me, the issue is less that crime is higher (or lower) than some previous point, it's that it has steadily increased during Brown's four years in office from where it was. It's done that despite downward trends across Florida. That's the point where you look at what's different. In the context of a mayoral race you look at what the mayor has done in his purview.

The mayor sets the budget, and here, he cut dozens of officers, he cut all the CSOs, he cut the Jacksonville Journey. He failed to solve the pension issue that eats up so much of our budget (until recently, hopefully). He proposed cutting 300 more officers. All this is fair game.

There's the rub. The numbers are wrong: crime isn't down. However, your further comments reveal what the discrepancy is. The FDLE's crime indexes and rates are based on faulty population data. This one isn't really on you, it looks like you reported their numbers faithfully (again, through 2013).

This comment exposes the problem:

The numbers are not wrong.

I understand the conversation about FDLE having wrong population numbers which messes with the crime rate.

That's interesting and requires more looking into but half of my response included total numbers, which is not based on a rate. The piece included not just the rate but also the total numbers, side by side to each other.

I wrote the following in my last reponse:

BUT...

Let's look at JSO's report.

So, the Curry campaign felt like Brown was at fault for the increase in crime from 2013 to 2014. Is he equally responsible for bringing about the record lows in crime during his tenure? That's what we experienced during Brown's admin.

The "Violent Crime Total" lowest years

2011: 5,182
2012: 5,189
2013: 5,246
2010: 5,469
2014: 5,853

Of the top lowest "violent crime total" numbers, Brown was in office four out of those five years. Three years, if you don't want to count 2011.

When you look at "murder" we had a record low number, 71 killed, in 2011. The last time the number of murders in our city was in the 70s was in 2001, 75 were killed.

This is the report from UCR from 1985 – 2012.

http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/Local/RunCrimeJurisbyJurisLarge.cfm

For whatever reason the data analysis tool is not updated to include 2013 and 2014 but you can add the JSO numbers from the report.

Even if you look at 2014, our violent crime rate is low. It has increased from 2013 but it is, again, very low. 2014, is the 5th lowest year of violent crime since 1985.

And, it was accomplished with less police.

The "Violent Crime Total" lowest years

2011: 5,182
2012: 5,189
2013: 5,246
2010: 5,469
2014: 5,853

These figures are the Total Number of violent crime Not the rate of violent crime. So, my greater point, which I think you keep ignoring is that even when we look at 2014 we see that it is 5th lowest "violent crime total" year since 1985!

If we keep looking we see that Brown was in office 4 out of the 5 lowest years in violent crime since 1985.

So, you want to make the claim that Brown was the cause of the crime increases?  Maybe he also deserves an award for overseeing the lowest levels of violent crime this city has ever seen?

Again, all my comments refer to what you put in the article. Clearly, the crime rate figures are wrong because they're based on population data that's way off. As I said, this isn't on you, you correctly reported the source. But honestly, you should have caught that if you're putting something on the front page. Ennis, tufsu1, and I all noticed it as soon as it was posted. It's not like there's a lack of fact checkers around here. And, of course, the figures also leave out 2014.

The piece does mention the violent crime totals. But, of course, it excludes the 2014 numbers, which are up.

There's the rub. The numbers are wrong: crime isn't down. However, your further comments reveal what the discrepancy is. The FDLE's crime indexes and rates are based on faulty population data. This one isn't really on you, it looks like you reported their numbers faithfully (again, through 2013).

Again, the numbers aren't wrong. Even when you look at total crime figures, independent of the population, the last five years have been low.

Just to be clear, I think this is all asinine. I think crime reports have to be looked with a gigantic grain of salt. I also think the debate over increases and decreases only matter in light of trends.

Just to be even more clear, I am not arguing that Brown is the cause of lowered crime. I'm arguing that Curry was mongering fear by using a spike in crime that happened during one the lowest seasons of crime this city has ever seen.

Then, what does this mean according to you or Curry? In 2014 the violent crime total was 5,853 an increase of 607 instances of violent crime from 2013. What's Curry's solution? Hire 147 more police to combat 607 more instances of violent crime? Yeah, that will be effective  .

Either Alvin Brown was phenomenally unlucky and just happened to govern over four years of increasing violent crime he had no control over, or some of his policies came home to roost. Clearly, I think it was the latter, and enough other voters agreed that it's all going to be Curry's problem in a couple of weeks.