Sunday, July 31, 2011

What's the big secret?

From NBC:

In NYPD's 52nd Precinct, some blocks are plagued by crime and others are among the city's safest.

That is one reason editors of the Norwood News, a biweekly Bronx newspaper, want to publish neighborhood-specific crime statistics. Managing Editor Alex Kratz says numbers for the entire precinct are too broad to be meaningful.

"People don't care really about what's happening on the other side of the precinct," Kratz said. "People want to know what's going on, on their block."

In 2008, the Norwood News successfully published exactly that kind of ultra-local data. For each of the 15 sectors that make up the 52nd Precinct, readers could learn how many robberies, auto thefts, assaults and rapes had plagued their neighborhoods in the previous six months.

Then, according to the paper's editor-in-chief, Jordan Moss, the NYPD abruptly stopped providing the information. The newspaper filed a Freedom of Information request to get the data, but that was more than 400 days ago, and there are still no statistics.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I was reading the last paragraph and it said the NYPD abruptly stopped providing the information. The newspaper filed a FREEDOM of information request to get the data, I laughed at it.

NYPD and FREEDOM should/cannot EVER be used in the same sentence, it is linguistically IMPOSSIBLE.

No two words in the entire English/American English language are incompatible.

There is nothing more that the NYPD hates than your freedoms/rights. These are the people who are supposed to uphold the law, protect AND serve the citizens of it's jurisdiction. Yet in reality these people will do EVERYTHING in their power to circumvent your rights.

SwampYankee said...

Ray Kelly just decided he would not honor FOIL requests. The Times has a similar one pending. All the courts said NYPD has to provide the information. Kelyy says "Not a priority" Don't know how he gets away with this. Please keep this in mind when Ray Kelly decides to run for mayor.

Anonymous said...

"People want to know what's going on, on their block."

Yes, people are just dying to know what crime statistics are being fudged on their block.

Anonymous said...

I hope people already know what's going on on their own block - the issue is how their block compares with others.