Crime Statistics Question

[Wanderin' Zero]

How many crimes did the SAPS prevent altogether during 2011? In other words, how many more crimes would have occurred if there was no SAPS at all?

[cerop]

How many speeding incidents were prevented since the new speeding camera was installed on the N1 between the N4 and Stormvoël off-ramp? In other words, how many more incidents of speeding would have occured if the cameras were not installed?

I honestly don't think there's an accurate way of measuring it. The only way I can see that being indicated (vaguely) is by taking stats of when there were no police in an area, and then comparing them to the amount if incidents that occured when police were in the area.

Or there might be some or other source of stats that I'm not aware of....

[Scuba Steve]

I personally don't trust the stats anyway. Doctored to "look nice" me thinks...

[Wanderin' Zero]

But you (or most people) accept as a general principle that existence of police reduces crime? Or speedtraps reduce speeding?

[cerop]

But you (or most people) accept as a general principle that existence of police reduces crime? Or speedtraps reduce speeding?

Not in the slightest. On the contrary, I believe, as a general principle, that consequence reduces, let's call them, unacceptable behavior. The lack thereof (consequences) resulting in us being where we are.

But this is a different discussion to original post. The original post, if I understand it correctly, wanted to quantify the value of police in terms of their role in the prevention of crimes being committed.

Personally, like I said, I don;t see how this can be accurately calculated. It's too subjective IMHO.

[cerop]

...in fact (and at the risk of sounding very philosophical) it's impossible to prevent a crime. At very best you (or police) can reduce the likelihood of a crime occuring.

If you prevent a crime, then a crime hasn't occured, ergo what did you prevent?

Let's put a cop in front of a shop. He's not preventing crime. Being oblivious to the intentions of the people around him, there is no way to know if he is in fact preventing a crime from happening, but there is also no way of knowing that he is NOT preventing a crime from happening. At best, it can be deduced that he is (arguably) reducing the risk of a crime occuring.

Sort of like a Schrodinger's Cop...

[h0stag3]

I agree Cerop. More laws do not help but punish the law abiding citizens. But if the enforcers of the law don't deal harshly enough with the proper criminals. The stats are doctored.

The presense of the police does help. But only while the police are there.

[Wanderin' Zero]

Most people seem to accept that having a police service or a private security service reduces crime - even though it is impossible to definitively measure that. In other words, they accept that the mere fact that there is armed presence capable of applying coercive force against criminals has the effect of reducing crime. Yet the same people very often seem unable to recognise that exactly the same principle applies to private firearms ownership.

Further in this vein, many people would not like to live in a society where the public and private security forces are entirely unarmed, as that would mean that there would be no mechanism for controlling armed criminals. Yet those same people very often seem unable to recognise that the same principle effectively applies in many ways to private firearm ownership.

[wombat57]

How long is a piece of string?I do not think there is any way to quantify how many crimes have been prevented.As noted by cerop how do you stop a crime that has not been committed?At best you might be able to find stats on crimes that have been stopped while still being carried out i.e making a bust during a drug deal.

[ikor]

While it certainly does not answer the question at hand, a kinda-sorta related issue that is interesting is how people perceive Police Presence. Ever wonder why so many US agencies use the black / blue / green and white color schemes where the front and rear ends of the marked cars are dark and the doors and roof white?

It is due to several studies done across the country years back where citizens were polled on their perception of how often / how well marked Police cars patrolled their areas, both residential and commercial.

The same number of cars patrolled the same routes at the same times for several weeks, but each week the paint schemes on the cars were changed. Every study ended with the dark front and rear with white doors and roof color scheme being perceived as the 'officers who patrolled the most / best' by the majority of those polled. In truth, they were just being seen and recognized as cop cars by more people.

We know that Police Presence does, in fact, prevent crimes, and that has been documented many times by doing 'increased directed patrols' in high crime areas...where the areas were flooded withy marked and unmarked cars for several days or weeks. In every case, crime dropped as compared to stats done before these directed patrols. Sadly, it also increased again once the extra people and patrols left, but it did take a while to get back to the old numbers.

There was also some amount of increased stats in nearby areas not subject to the patrols but that did not correspond with the decrease seen in these specific areas. That would indicate that some, but not all, of the thugs just changed operating areas while others slowed or stopped their thuggery during these periods.

Similar case studies can be found with armed robbery stakeouts and reductions in robberies after the thugs recognized that the stake out guys were out there and they would take them down as hard as necessary if they chose the wrong stores to rob.

Still, while the Police can, at certain times and places, prevent crimes, they cannot be EVERY place all the time. There is a lot of truth in the saying that 'When seconds count, the Police are only minutes away'.