Does this mean anything?

Question

New York - population 19.3 million - NYPD 37038 strong - 428 murders in 2006

London - population 7.2 million - Met Police 31141 strong - 168 murders in 2006

I agree that the figures for population, in particular, are dubious as it doesn't allow for the differnece between the maximum population (during daytime) and the residential populations. The figures quoted were off Wiki (see that for the appropriate references). The figures for the police strengths were from the respective forces websites and are difficult to argue with as they can be checked in numerous differnet ways. I chose murder as the crime to compare as it is the most difficult to brush under the carpet - a burglary can be classified as criminal damage to massage the figures in certain circumstances etc (I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in the States but I'm sure there is one)

Answer 1

Assuming your figures are correct it means that with 1 police officer in London for each 230 population murders are 1 in 43000 population, compared to New York where 1 police officer per 520 achieves almost the same with 1 murder in 45000, suggesting that NYC police are more than twice as effective at preventing murder, perhaps due to carrying guns.

That said, I'm not sure about your figures - city population is notoriously difficult to define, and you would have to be sure that the figures concerning policed populations correspond exactly.

Edit: Using Bear's figure of 921 below (and his links confirm your NYC population btw), the New York murder rate is now 1 in 21000 - twice as many per capita as London. However, the ratio of police to population remains constant, with London having 2 1/4 times the coverage of New York.

So:
London police coverage: 2.26 * New York
London murders: 2.05 * fewer than New York.

If (as I mentioned earlier) you are sure your police to population figures correspond then it would appear that New York police are doing slightly better, but certainly not significantly better or worse, so perhaps this suggests the use of guns is not a deterrent to major crime?

Further edit: someone has given me a thumbs down. Have I made a mistake in my figures?

Answer 2

According to the shortcut statistics attached, New York had 921 murders in 2006

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm

In the last 12 months London had 159 murders;

http://www.met.police.uk/crimestatistics/

I think it goes without saying that it is generally safer in the UK. The banning of firearms goes a long way towards this.

Answer 3

Major crimes vary very little percentage wise, per head of population ,regardless of policing policies.

Population density is also a factor. I know where I would feel safer though!

Answer 4

Yes because we have banned firearms here. So now it is safer for us to walk the streets and we had a knife amnesty and a little old lady handed in a bread knife to a grim faced policeman who informed us 'that in the wrong hands this could cause a serious injury or even death' .

So if america banned guns and had a knife amnesty ( in other words, ban being allowed to protect yourself), then they too could cower to the scum (mostly foreign) in our lovely society.

Answer 5

Interesting!

Looks like it is time to look into more areas like cultural make up of the population, cases against cops (NY cops had their former commissioner recently indicted for accepting bribes, for ex).

Answer 6

It means that New York and London are dangerous places to live...

Answer 7

yes it means in new york there were 428 murders and in london there was 168 murders

where did you get these statistics from because i just googled them and there a load of shite

Answer 8

yes , the gov, wanna get the finger out thier a r s e , andput more cops on the streets, and get the bent coppers off the streets.

Answer 9

The answer to your question is that it doesn't mean anything at all. Whatever you are trying to "prove" would be so superficial as to be totally useless.

Answer 10

It means you're making up statistics. Erroneously.