Police barely solve any crime

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/08/20/ ... %20More%20

Hope this doesn't get absorbed by DBZ's thread. It's not about whether the police are racist or violent. It's about what the police actually accomplish, this public good that we weigh and debate and fund. (Still something worth referring to when debating anything else about the police though.)

[sayla0079]

While I don't totally agree with this I do agree that there are cases they never accomplish (There are many of them here).

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

What part do you disagree with?

[sayla0079]

That the police don't accomplish things. They do sometimes just not all the time.

[Riedquat]

There's the worry about being caught for committing crime too, so you need police for preventation. It's obviously hard to know how effective that is though, since it's rather hard to measure crimes that weren't committed.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

That the police don't accomplish things. They do sometimes just not all the time.

They barely do, if we're talking about crimes solved/punished. Per the article, it's a grand total of 2%. You can talk about other things surrounding that but it is a fact that 2% of reported crimes lead to a successful result by the police.

[Madner Kami]

That the police don't accomplish things. They do sometimes just not all the time.

They barely do, if we're talking about crimes solved/punished. Per the article, it's a grand total of 2%. You can talk about other things surrounding that but it is a fact that 2% of reported crimes lead to a successful result by the police.

Upon coursory reading, the article is basing this number upon crime-statistics that include unreported crimes. The article looses all basis for a discussion at that point.

[clearspira]

I would advise watching Chuck's review of Rules of Engagement and Tribunal why this is: our police are bound by rules and the bonds of freedom which are innocent until proven guilty, rights before justice, evidence before arrest, criteria must be met.

An actual police state would solve more crimes because they can wire tap anyone, seize anything, raid anyone and say what they like when it comes to crime stats. But that is not freedom. And we have to accept that living in a society based on freedom means that the police will always be operating with one hand tied behind their back.

Only a fool would want the police gone because they are ineffectual. And only a fool would want a police state.

[CmdrKing]

From the article:

In 2018, the rate of arrest for serious felony crimes reported to police was about 22%. But because twice as many crimes happen as the police find out about it, the arrest rate for all crimes that happened was half what police reported – just 11%.

Which includes this link for the 22% statistic: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... id=3566383

I would contend that a mere 22% is still supportive of the claim police don’t solve crime. Particularly when that’s all reported crimes, which includes various forms of theft and nuisance reports where police involvement at all is of dubious value.

[Madner Kami]

An arrest-rate has little to do with the solving of a crime.