Hi Mr. Lehman, I just finished listening to your interview with Ezra Klein. Thank you. I enjoyed it, especially after having worked for over two decades in the criminal justice system in San Francisco, much of that time on the streets. I have one question about your statistics. Crime statistics have always confused me, probably for the s…
Hi Mr. Lehman, I just finished listening to your interview with Ezra Klein. Thank you. I enjoyed it, especially after having worked for over two decades in the criminal justice system in San Francisco, much of that time on the streets. I have one question about your statistics. Crime statistics have always confused me, probably for the same reasons you say they are "imperfect"; and I'd like to know your sources of statistics for an interesting point you make. Ezra asked your story for the rise in violent crime in 2020. In addition to COVID-related reasons, you cited the George Floyd protests, leading to a decrease in police officer activity and reduced police department staffing. So protests communicate to police to reduce enforcement which they do which tells shooters they can shoot at each other more which they do. What statistics are you basing that increase on? Are you using 9-1-1 calls? Police Reports? I'm confused. If you are using 9-1-1 calls, how can police officer activity go down while violent crime goes up? Don't we assume for every 9-1-1 call there is a corresponding police response/action? Or is it that a 9-1-1 call comes in, and police officers don't respond to it? So then you have a data entry of a reported crime -- but not a corresponding data entry for police activity? Or is the data supporting your point from the FBI household surveys and the 3-1-1 calls? But 3-1-1 is not the appropriate place to report violent crimes? So that leaves the FBI surveys? I'd love to see the statics you're using, or to have a conversation with you -- just to make sense of my years witnessing these issues at the street level without satisfying answers.
Hi Mr. Lehman, I just finished listening to your interview with Ezra Klein. Thank you. I enjoyed it, especially after having worked for over two decades in the criminal justice system in San Francisco, much of that time on the streets. I have one question about your statistics. Crime statistics have always confused me, probably for the same reasons you say they are "imperfect"; and I'd like to know your sources of statistics for an interesting point you make. Ezra asked your story for the rise in violent crime in 2020. In addition to COVID-related reasons, you cited the George Floyd protests, leading to a decrease in police officer activity and reduced police department staffing. So protests communicate to police to reduce enforcement which they do which tells shooters they can shoot at each other more which they do. What statistics are you basing that increase on? Are you using 9-1-1 calls? Police Reports? I'm confused. If you are using 9-1-1 calls, how can police officer activity go down while violent crime goes up? Don't we assume for every 9-1-1 call there is a corresponding police response/action? Or is it that a 9-1-1 call comes in, and police officers don't respond to it? So then you have a data entry of a reported crime -- but not a corresponding data entry for police activity? Or is the data supporting your point from the FBI household surveys and the 3-1-1 calls? But 3-1-1 is not the appropriate place to report violent crimes? So that leaves the FBI surveys? I'd love to see the statics you're using, or to have a conversation with you -- just to make sense of my years witnessing these issues at the street level without satisfying answers.