Talk:Crime in the United States

Should intro section be cut down/incorporated into other sections?

The intro includes information on:

• Global crime rates
• More specific details on modern rates (last few years)
• How US compares to other countries
• How crime data is collected and defined
• The "basic aspects" (is there a term for this?) of crime.

I think there's an argument for at least some of each bullet to stay in the intro, while some could be moved. Here are some suggestions:

• Move the discussion about very modern rates (e.g., after the crime drop, the 2020s) to "Crime over time." This would include most of current paragraph 2.
• Keep brief mentions of how US crime rates compare to rest of world and its cost.
• Put the last two bullets in a single new section placed before "Crime over time." The new section could be titled something like, "Defining and Tracking Crime"

Those are my initial thoughts, happy to discuss. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mod creator (talk • contribs)

As your section title suggests, I'd love the idea. I'd especially want different articles corresponding to each state, and if possible (if not already done) to include the US Territories and Washington DC. Then, in those articles, have the main cities, and counties for data. I'll later keep an eye on this, and reach out to the U.S. WikiProject. Ｍｏｄ ｃｒｅａｔｏｒ 🏡 🗨 📝 04:17, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Correlation between crime rates and the number of police officers

I think in the Influences on crime section, "There is no correlation between crime rates and the number of police officers" might be controversial, and I don't think it could be supported with only one source, as other sources also said that there is positive correlation. [1] 2601:647:4400:FE90:F585:3AC4:B25E:38A4 (talk) 16:06, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

This section has been removed, as an actual review of citation found that the reference is a book review about two books, and unless this was an article about those books, the reference isn't suitable for this article or that type of statement. Most importantly however the reference does not state what was written anyway, and I don't understand where or how it was originally written using that citation. KarmaKangaroo (talk) 17:10, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Charts

I have removed some duplicate charts and others that were not readable. They really seem to be cluttering the article and are not being updated. Anyone else think we should cap this article at 5-6 charts max? I added external links to data dashboards of the data most often used to make the charts that might make more sense than having to flag and hope someone updates all these infographics every year... Superb Owl (talk) 04:42, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to cap the number of charts in this article. Agree that updating them is an ongoing maintenance issue, but so is updating the text of the article so I don't think that's a good reason to have a cap. I created several of the charts using Google Sheets and as long as the data is in some reasonable form it's not very time consuming to update them. IIRC, the reason they are not up to date has more to do with the lack of recent data than the age of the charts.

That said, any charts we include should meet some level of quality and I can't say I miss any of the ones that have been recently deleted.

On a related matter, right now the lede of the article looks like a wall of text so I'd advocate putting something there for visual appeal - a chart, info box, picture, something... Also, it might benefit from moving some of the material to later in the article. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:30, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on all counts Superb Owl (talk) 16:20, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the most recent chart. Looking at the details, your first version used +/- 7% as the "full scale" but the version you posted uses 100% as the full scale. This makes it hard to see what's going on; the first chart gives a better picture, in my opinion. I'd advocate using that instead. Thanks. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:57, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

No problem - will put it back Superb Owl (talk) 17:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like in the attempt to declutter, the chart I'd added with the newer homicide data (it has ample references to corrected data pre-1930s, alongside others) was removed, but the outdated one remains with "needs update" and "citation needed." The outdated chart also only goes to 2000 instead of 2023.

To avoid the issue of duplicates, I will put the new chart in while removing the old one. The new one is busy, so would need to be larger. If you think this is an issue, we could look into a graph that is both updated and simpler. Let me know if that is preferable. Winspiff (talk) 15:40, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

My issue with the chart you added is that it appears to be WP:OR (in addition to being quite cluttered.) Can you clarify that this was not original data analysis that you performed to create it by pointing to a version of the chart or data published in a reliable source? Superb Owl (talk) 15:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I was confused by this comment, so I looked up the WP:OR. It seems this chart is consistent: "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments." I did upload this chart, but this is not my original work, and none of the content is new or unpublished. All data has been published previously by the referenced sources (explained in depth in the image's summary section), just like the other charts on this page. The same process is used to make other crime charts that extend to any time a different agency started collecting data (e.g., homicide rate charts that show any early crime data pull that early data from the census via the later-established National Vital Statistics System). I was thinking you might be referring to the part about the CDC's new 2000 age-adjustment guidelines for 1950-1998 data, but those calculations were done by the CDC itself (published in the references listed). That said, if you ever have a concern like this, please feel free to ask and I can clarify. Winspiff (talk) 16:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks as though it has spliced together data from 6 different sources without a secondary source saying such data is consistent with each other - that raised a WP:OR red flag. Also, who is Courtenay Lewis and are they a reliable source? I do not see them listed in any of the citations. Superb Owl (talk) 18:12, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That data is all interrelated. Most sources are from the same place (the CDC), but they must be accessed from different places on the CDC website, or the CDC links to them from their own website. This is because not all the data was collected in modern times, and a lot of it has not yet been incorporated into a modern online database (for various reasons). For example, CDC Wonder is their new method for sharing this data, but Wonder often only includes data back to 2018. The CDC's 2000 age-adjusted corrections are, again, based on its same data. Eckberg's corrections are also, again, based on the exact same CDC data. To make a long story short: we could just write that the primary source is the "CDC National Vital Statistics System," but that's not specific in terms of where the reader can locate and verify all of the actual data (especially when CDC corrected older, published data).

Like most Wikipedia charts, the chart's author is not a source, they're simply the author who created the graph based on data and information generated by others. In most cases, that is how Wikipedia graphs have to be made; Wikipedia requires all material to be open-access, meaning the original published graphs cannot be copied directly. People who create or release Creative Commons graphs are typically not "sources" themselves (unlike if they took a picture themselves or something of that nature), they use source material to create the graphs they author. They are, in essence, expressing someone else's data visually.

On your other question (that I received a separate notification for) - as of right now, the CDC's latest published data is from 2022 (https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D158). They do not immediately publish the official version of the data. There are a variety of reasons for this, some having to do with the time it takes to properly collect and vet all the data. Winspiff (talk) 19:04, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That still does not address my concerns but is helpful context, thank you Superb Owl (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you're doing great work. For example, a lot of the things you support, like colorblind compatibility, are important. There are many more graphing standards out there that would benefit Wikipedia, although implementing would result in the loss of good charts across the website (my approach would be to make a note of this on the image talk pages for the creators to revise). Having said that, please see my other note about the "Geography of Crime" section. I am wondering if your interpretation of "original research" may be a bit different than Wikipedia's established guidelines. Winspiff (talk) 00:16, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

On a separate note, I noticed that you marked the "Geography of Crime" section as original research. Every statement and the table seemed to have ample inline citations to reputable, published, and often primary sources (like the FBI). From what I can see, the sources are consistent with what is stated. Nothing I could see looked to be an unsupported opinion or data collected by the Wikipedian themselves or that was unpublished. It also seems to be stated in a neutral manner, and there does not appear to be any conclusions or interpretations in synthesizing the material that do not reflect the content of the references (Wikipedia:No original research). Was there a specific sentence that seemed to be unsupported by the references? It may help to mark that specific sentence rather than the section as a whole. Winspiff (talk) 17:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you think it would be worthwhile to establish a consistent width for all the images? Winspiff (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)