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Torrance Stephens's avatar

The attitude and tone of the Democratic Party will only continue to reinforce more people to vote against them. https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/the-limousine-liberal-syndrome-strikes

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kellyjohnston's avatar

Mike Gill was unavailable for comment. You ignore a lot of data that shows several forms of violent crime are up, and you completely ignore how the data has been corrupted in the District of Columbia. Do better. https://kellyjohnston.substack.com/cp/170783986

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/08/12/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-trump-takeover-renews-questions-over-d-c-crime-data/

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Jonathan Stray's avatar

Thanks for this. That's a juicy quote, and crime under-classification is definitely a problem that can happen!

Los Angeles did this for years https://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-crimestats-info-box-20140810-story.html

However, all evidence suggests that the more violent the crime, the more likely it is to be correctly counted. This is done by checking crime numbers against surveys that ask people to report victimization. In essence the DC stats have been confirmed by two independent sources.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ntmh.pdf

Do you have other evidence that might cast doubt on the accuracy of DC crime stats?

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kellyjohnston's avatar

Only what has been published by others. Here's another story. A lawsuit on this issue was quietly settled this week. https://freebeacon.com/crime/a-dc-police-sergeant-exposed-her-superiors-for-misclassifying-crimes-to-make-stats-look-low-the-city-just-quietly-settled-her-lawsuit/

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Jonathan Stray's avatar

Thanks for this, lots of detail. I've added a section on the problem of crime statistics accuracy.

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kellyjohnston's avatar

That's great, and I look forward to reading it; it is a big problem and not just in Washington. Many big cities have redefined (dumbed down) definitions and labels or thoroughly chosen not to report data at all.

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