Opinion
Fear-mongering over crime dangerous, irrational
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Also by Alec Slocum:
- Reasons for code changes fall short (April 27, 2009)
- Will activist ASM serve all campus? (April 13, 2009)
- Grade inflation threatens value (March 30, 2009)
- Budget forces truth-in-sentencing reform (March 10, 2009)
- Microfinancing new avenue for foreign aid (February 23, 2009)
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It should not be surprising that of the almost 30 news stories occupying the pages of this newspaper’s first publication in a month, two of the five stories on the front page dealt directly with the murder of a young person in Madison. In fact, the title of one of these articles uses the same word, “slain,” as is used to describe “Sweeney Todd” on that very same front page, a musical that “can truly boast its successful use of excessive blood flow, homicide and even cannibalism.” I say I am unsurprised at this occurrence because these two pieces of news are especially emotionally disturbing, and emotionally disturbing equals enticing, and enticing equals front-page material. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a newspaper placing articles dealing with violent crime on their front pages. As time has proved, these types of stories are sure-fire winners with readers, and in an era in which newspapers are struggling to stay afloat, are more necessary than ever. However, there are some undesirable results.
What kind of undesirable results? As Daniel Gardner notes in his book on the subject of risk assessment, “The Science of Fear,” articles about crime — especially violent crime — appeal to a more primitive and emotional aspect of our mind, which coincidentally makes them easier to remember, and thus easier to recall. And, according to almost every psychologist, if it is easier to recall an event, our brain equates that with an event occurring more often. So, newspapers publish a lot of these stories because they are appealing to us, and because they are especially appealing to us, we read and remember them, and the spiral continues downward until we have formed a completely warped view of the actual safety of the world around us.
Enter the campaign to fill the seat vacated by Eli Judge of the 8th Aldermanic District. If there is one common denominator among the candidates’ platforms, it is quite clearly “campus safety.” In fact, Bryon Eagon, who I take to probably be the most qualified of the candidates and likely the frontrunner for the open seat, seems to be entrusting his entire campaign to this single issue. Not coincidentally, recent entrant Mark Woulf seems to be heading in a very similar direction. Yet, the fundamental question that is being completely ignored in the framing of this issue is whether our campus and community are actually dangerous.
So here come the statistics to answer that question. According to the 2008-09 University of Wisconsin Campus Safety Guide’s statistics on campus crime, which deals with crimes committed against UW students both on and off campus, in 2007 there were zero cases of murder or negligent manslaughter reported (just as the two years before it). There were 13 cases of forcible sex offenses, 11 cases of robbery and 24 cases of aggravated assault. There are approximately 40,000 students, which means the percent risk any of the above crimes poses for a given individual in a calendar year is astonishingly low (.06 percent chance of being a victim of aggravated assault, the most common of the types of crime listed). Or as professional risk assessors would classify it — essentially zero. Now, though the probability of being burglarized may be slightly greater than being struck by lightning or the earth being destroyed by a meteor in 2012, it certainly does not justify it being a make-or-break issue in an election at this time, especially considering the steps taken already to protect students’ safety.
Don’t feel bad; this phenomenon of the systematic misjudgment of risk is certainly not one unique to Madison but is a microcosm of what also has a tendency to occur at the national and global level. As Gardner also notes, following Sept. 11 the American public looked on in approval as our federal government focused solely on spending obscene amounts of money to, at least at first, track down, kill and protect us from “the existential threat” of terrorists. There is no storyline more persuasive to our emotional assessment of risk, and our resulting fear guided our approval of action. Meanwhile, the year Bush was re-elected to the presidency seemingly for his ability to protect our existence, a report was released by the Institute of Medicine — of the National Academies of Science — that discovered that lack of health insurance, “causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States.” That death toll equates to almost six Sept. 11’s. Yet, the public would have thrown Bush out of office had he chose to ignore the terrorist threat to focus on reforming health insurance, which actually posed a much greater threat to our safety. This is a much broader example of the same mechanism that seems to be occurring at the local level. We are allowing the emotional, often irrational aspect of our mind to cloud our better assessment of true risk.
The facts and information at hand inform us that we are actually very safe. In fact, we live in one of the safest places and times of human history to date. So, let’s please make this election, as well as future ones from local up to national, less about misplaced and misguided fears for our safety and more about a broad examination of the needs of our community.
Alec Slocum (awslocum@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in philosophy and legal studies.
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Nobody is fear-mongering [yet]. You’re overreaching.
The problem with your theory is that crime is going up over the past few years. Theory of broken windows, what is the root cause of this? Or should we ignore it till it becomes a “statistical issue”? I mean you are statistically less likely to get an STD in madison then africa, so don’t wear a condom?
Risk = Hazard + Outrage http://www.psandman.com/articles/shield.htm
Simply put, the equation defines risk not only on the basis of cold technical data but also by human standards such as trust, morality, accountability, openness, and compassion (the outrage component).
Outrage, Sandman argues, is a predictable response when a community feels it isn’t being dealt with squarely. It doesn’t matter how big or small the technical risk. It doesn’t matter that, from a technical viewpoint, people are overreacting. In Sandman’s terms, Outrage is as legitimate a part of risk as hazard… Sandman argues that opening up on the worst case demonstrates a company [or government agency] is fully aware of reality, ready to act to ensure the worst never happens, ready to move quickly to fix things if it does. Result: the degree to which such information scares people is far outweighed by the amount of credibility it creates for a firm [or government agency].
“If I’m a neighbor,” he explains, “and I think that you’re taking the risk seriously, I’ll stop worrying and go bowling.”
The author is drawing a specious false dichotomy between health care deaths and terrorist mass murder.
Of course, the relevant difference is that our Executive branch is empowered under the US Constitution to “provide for the common defense.” Conversely, there is no enumerated Federal power to provide “health care.” Folks must complain to their state Governor (and legislature) under our Federalist system.
It remains to be seen whether apathetic Americans will reawaken from their renewed September 10th slumber— and see fit to throw this Appeaser-in-Chief out on his prodigious ears.
Meanwhile, Americans can clearly see that the Pelosi-Obama-Reid (POR) triumverate’s economic FEAR-MONGERING and disastrous plans to socialize our national economy (health care, automotive, financial, etc., ad nauseum) are rapidly destroying the very fabric of the US and global economy.
See also “The POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy: Tanks a Lot” http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-por-pelosi-obama-reid-economy-tanks-a-lot/
After 4 years of Obamanomics, Americans will wax nostalgic over the prosperity of the Reagan-Gingrich-Bush era.
Dude, the Wisconsin Campus Safety Guide is about what happens on campus, not the muggings and break-ins happening downtown!
“Fear mongering”? “This phenomenon of the systematic misjudgment of risk….”? By golly, I think you’re on to something here, Alec.
This sounds exactly like the AlGore, James Hansen, Barrack Obama driven political agenda known as Man Made Global Warming! It is indeed “Man Made”. Scaring the public with nonexisting catastrophic events based on rigged data and output from Climate Models that can never be validated to serve their political agenda!
Nasa’s rogue fear monger, James Hansen, is no stranger to shading the truth. In his self written on-line biography he states “The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.” Simple evaluation of unadulterated data is not acceptable by the James Hansen Climate Crises model. One must “influence the nature” of the data to provide the crucial perception of impending calamity. Simply put, if the data doesn’t produce the desired ‘hockey stick’ (hokey stick?)graph of global doom, adjust the data so that it does. Mr. Hansen regularly does exactly that. He adjusts the GISS data base to fit a ‘global warming’ hypothesis. He does this without open disclosure of the data sets or the algorithms (AlGore rythms?)used to achieve the ‘adjustments’. And viola! The planet is again ‘warming’, just as his Climate Models ‘predict’.
AlGore will testify before Congress this week that Global Warming is at the ‘tipping point’ again. He will use the James Hansen’s adjusted GISS data and climate models as his ‘proof’. As a wave of record low temperatures and snow fall records are set around the globe again this winter and planetary cooling is readily apparent in the national and international data sets, we are supposed to believe that global overheating is imminent. This “phenomenon of the systematic misjudgment of risk….” indeed!
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barrack Obama are commiting our nation to spending a trillion dollars of misdirected taxpayer money on a nonexistent Global Warming problem. Unlike the known and validated threat from Muslim terrorists, any dollar spent on Global Warming is a dollar completely wasted. In a period of national financial crises, that goes beyond criminal. It approaches treason.
Invictus Maneo
Great piece.
Well we may not be in eminent danger of being sexually assaulted, one of the biggest impacts that city government policy has on students is with regard to safety. We might not need more resources devoted to crime prevention, but that doesn’t mean that the use of current resources and the policies that govern their use should not be a priority to discuss.
Of course Kyle Szarzysnki would say this is a “great piece” because it doesn’t mention Katrina Flores.
The entire editorial is based on research missing the point as downtown crime is not included in the study. I am willing to bet anyone $10,000 Szarzynski writes a blog post or editorial referencing this research to bash to all hell Katrina’s opponents as cover for her woefully inadequate strategies to combat crimes in the area. It will happen. Mark my words. And when it does just remember how poorly researched his argument will be.
4:38, You are not making any sense. Please get a life.
Best, Kyle
I want to be safe on my campus, that’s an issue that matters to me. I appreciate the fact that the candidates are listening to that. I’ve talked with Bryon Eagon about safety issues, and he really knows what he’s talking about. No fear mongering that I’ve seen.
ahh the “get a life” defense
heard that one before from you somewhere!
As a female senior I have become greatly discouraged in the deterioration of campus safety in the few years I’ve lived in Madison. It is not right for anyone to not feel safe in their homes and neighborhoods.
As a student living in District 8 I want to hear about the candidates safety proposals and believe it is the most important issue for myself and other students. As a freshman I felt safe, but in the last couple years events, not people/newspapers, have created fear and worry.
I hope that whichever candidate wins will devote themselves to this issue. Eagon has the most indepth and comprehensive safety platform that I have seen. All the candidates stated their safety platforms in their press realeases. Eagon also has a website, bryoneagon.com, that is going to have his positions on it. I couldn’t find a website for the other candidates.
Do you lit drops on Langdon, not on the BH’s comment boards
Hilarious that a couple of hardcore culture war koolaid drinkers can’t help but try to turn this into an arguement about socialized health care or global warming. Hope you kids get over that by the time you’re ready to hit the real world.
The fact is, downtown Madison is exceptionally safe. Because there’s so little crime in Madison, a single group doing a half-dozen burglaries can have a serious effect on the statistics, but that doesn’t mean that it’s significantly less safe. By and large, Madison is one of the safest places in the country, and that’s not changing, so chill out and look for something else to be outraged over.
9:33, It’s really not a “defense” so much as a recommendation.
Kyle
Kyle, It is recommended you follow your own advice.
power
big time power