Tricked by their own statistics

Sorry for all the “crime” related posts but it is an annoying topic.

The BBC has more articles on the recently released Crime Statistics and it highlights an interesting logical conundrum. For example, the BBC article begins with:

Police recorded the first fall in overall violence in eight years, but drug offences and robbery went up.

Seems like a pretty key point to make. The rest of the news item is about how the public don’t trust the statistics and how Government needs to increase understanding of how they are collected and how accurate they are.

Comically, the article ends with this comment:

Meanwhile, police chiefs have been criticised by a committee of MPs who concluded giving police forces extra cash had not helped reduce crime.

Now, this begs the question that if the reports are crime has gone down, how do the MPs conclude that the extra cash did not help? Or, as I suspect, do the MPs feel that crime has not gone down and therefore need the government to give them advice on understanding the BCS results?

Madness cubed. [tags]Crime,Government, Statistics, Survey, Madness, Idiots, Society, Logic[/tags]

Crime and the Rose Tinted Past

At the risk of turning this blog into a never ending stream of rants about public perceptions of crime, it seems there are even more woo-like nonsensical things being pushed out by people (Hattip oustudent blog).

On the BBC “Have your say” pages there is an ongoing debate about crime, and public understanding of the levels of crime.

By and large, the comments speak volumes about a people who are so disconnected from reality, so twisted by media led scare stories, that they no longer have (if they even ever did) any objective view point on the world around them. As is always the case, lots of people who comment, have no idea what the topic they are commenting on is about but want to make a comment about how much they hate the government and everything wrong in the world is entirely the fault of Tony Blair for misleading the nation over Iraq. Even the rain is caused by that… Continue reading

Media Inspired Cluelessness

A few days ago, I ranted about foolish people who thought having a hammer or baseball bat by the side of their bed was a “good idea” for stopping burglars. At the time, the comments on the Radio 2 page were not available but they are now. (If you are reading this after 24 Jul 07, it may no longer point to the right place).

At the time of my previous rant, I was mainly thinking about the idiots who feel they are skilled enough to get up in the middle of the night, naked or in pyjamas, pick up a cumbersome household item-cum-weapon and attack an intruder inside their house. The comments reinforced my previous opinions and to be honest, most of the people are simply writing jingoistic bravado, knowing that the chances of them ever being put to the test is minimal. Some are more entertaining than others though, for example:

keith hughes, salisbury
there not by the bed but under. i have 3 single handed swords, 3 hand and a half swords, a pole arm, a musket, canon, armour and a number of shields, take your pick. All of these are for medieval re-enactment. I think i have the art of home defence worked out, although i’m open to suggestions.

I hope his house is actually large enough for him to wield these weapons properly, although I suspect any burglar who waits around long enough for him to sally forth in armour with his bill pike may well be prepared to deal with the consequences. Sadly, Keith is equally deluded in thinking he has the “art of home defence” worked out, but no more so than any of the others.

The big problem I have with the comments, is the total lack of understanding. Around one in three are people complaining that the law does not allow them to defend their property (or in the case of one nutter who calls himself “King Arthur”, his women). This is a myth.

Thanks to the media’s misrepresentation of reality, these people are complaining about the unfairness of laws which don’t exist. None of them have bothered to clue themselves up, but they still feel perfectly capable of sounding off about it. Add in people who cant even follow the debate and think the discussion is about defending lives and it becomes truly comical.

Pretty ironic really. Sadly, these people have the vote…

[tags]Government, Law, Self Defence,Rants, Society, Culture, Idiots, Media[/tags]