Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cadre.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!idis!cadre!geb From: geb@cadre.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics Subject: Re: Crime in New York Message-ID: <155@cadre.ARPA> Date: Sat, 12-Jan-85 13:21:26 EST Article-I.D.: cadre.155 Posted: Sat Jan 12 13:21:26 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 15-Jan-85 00:59:46 EST References: <166@abnji.UUCP> Reply-To: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks) Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pgh. Lines: 30 Xref: watmath net.flame:7677 net.politics:6831 Summary: >Actually, it is rather amusing to hear people complain about crime in >New York City when it is 10th in the United States in violent crime. > Actually, it is amusing to hear people quote such statistics. I am originally from Albuquerque, and lived in Chicago for 8 years. Before I went to Chicago, there was a sensational story in the Albuquerque papers concerning the fact that Albuquerque's crime rate was one of the highest in the nation, including Chicago and NYC. Now certainly there is a lot of petty crime there, and a lot of burglery too, but mugging was unheard of, and in order to get shot or stabbed you had to frequent the wrong bars or the wrong peoples wives. After going to school in Chicago for 4 years, probably about a third of my medical school classmates had experienced personally some form of person-to-person crime, and several of them (out of a population of about 100) were injured. Several others had been present when one of their companions was shot or otherwise seriously injured. All my life in Albuquerque, I had never known anyone who had been mugged. So, the caveat is to ask what kind of crime? Another problem is much of the crime in NY and Chicago goes unreported, since the police have very little interest in it unless someone was killed or a bank was robbed. (Fortunately all I personally ever lost was in Chicago was my car radio. However I narrowly escaped a mugging when two large teenagers sprang out of the bushes while riding my bicycle on the lake front and chased me until I was able to outdistance them. I have also had my car broken into in NYC, on one of my few visits there.)