Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
That measurement is only an indication that the U.S. is top of that list. But how many people in the U.S. experience crime or violent crime, against how many people do not? That proportion is smaller than you think, and only seems big thanks to media coverage of the bad things, not the good. The crime per capita measurement is a perfect example of using statistics to say what you want to say (the U.S. is bad), or... being pessimistic.
(So, it's not really off-topic at all.)
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Did you just dismiss numerical evidence in favor of anecdata?
I think almost everyone I know has "experienced crime". We just try to not think about it very often. Almost every woman I know has been raped or struck by someone at some point in her life. Most of us have also experienced violent theft; cars broken into, windows broken, home invasion.
Almost all of us have lived our lives knowing that going to the police will very probably make it worse. We live in a country where the commander of the Manhattan Special Victims Squad can say things like
"I am betting nine out of 10 times, when a woman asks for a female detective the story is going to be untrue." (
Source and
source.)
Is the world bleak? Yes. Does its relative bleakness vary depending on the person experience it? Not surprisingly, yes.
'Course, that doesn't mean I don't like happy books to distract me from the dystopia outside.
