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No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Topic Summary Introduction Detroit and Chicago Homicides The Big Apple and you name it! Whats wrong with the ratio y/x? The Homicides-Population Diagram for Major Cities Budgets to Fight Violent Crimes Predicting Chicagos year-end homicides for 2013 Conclusions Appendix 1: Illustrating the Idea of Work Function Appendix 2: If NYCs Boroughs Were Their Own Cities Reference list Page No. 1 2 3 6 7 12 23 27 29 31 35 38
Summary
Attention is called here, once again, to the fundamental difficulties posed by the widespread use of simple y/x ratios to make projections and comparisons, as was done recently by New York Mayor Bloomberg. In his address on Public Safety to the New York Police Department (NYPD), on April 30, 2013, Bloomberg tried to compare New York citys lowest ever homicides (419) in its entire history, with those observed in other cities and concluded with, if we had had Detroits murder rate, more than 4,500 New Yorkers would have been murdered last year instead of 419. Thats a factor of ten. What is the proper basis for comparing homicides rate in different cities? This is discussed here using x-y diagrams and calling attention to the more general law y = hx + c where x is the population and y the number of homicides. New York should be comparing itself with Austin, TX, or San Jose, CA, or San Diego, CA. But, this will never be understood if we just keep (ab)using simple y/x
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ratios. Bloombergs comparisons, though based on conventional wisdom, represent another huge RED FLAG in this abuse of y/x ratios.
1. Introduction
A few weeks ago, on April 30, 2013, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City (NYC), in his address on Public Safety to the New York Police Department (NYPD), made the following rather self-flattering comparison of the homicide rates in New York with other major metropolitan areas [1]. City Population Homicides, Homicide Rate m Calculated Bloomberg 2010 US in 2012, y rate, m = referred Homicides figures Census, x y/x per to NYC, (Relative millions 100,000 m/mNYC to NYC) NYC 8.175 419 5.13 1 DC 0.602 88 14.62 2.9 1196 1200 Chic 2.696 506 16.14 3.1 1319 1400 Phil 1.526 329 21.56 4.2 1763 1700 Balt 0.621 217 34.95 6.8 2857 2900 Det 0.714 411 57.58 11.2 4707 4500 LA 3.793 203 14.63 The above projections by Mayor Bloomberg assume, implicitly, that all cities must have essentially the same the homicide rate for comparison. 1 million = 10 times 100,000. See also: http://chicagowarrior.blogspot.com/2013/01/chicagocrime-500-murders-in-2012.html. For NYC, based on 2012 homicides figures, the homicide rate per 100,000 population is m = y/x = 419/81.75 = 5.13 = 5, approx. For Washington D. C. it works out to m 15, or about 3 times the NYC value and so on down the list. So, Bloomberg mentioned each city by name and finally said, .if we had had Detroits murder rate, more than 4,500 New Yorkers would have been murdered last year instead of 419. Thats a factor of ten. With this background lets compare the homicide rates, in NYC, Chicago, and Detroit, the Motor City, also known to be Crime Capital, USA, see Refs. [2-5].
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Statistical Report by the Chicago Police Department [7] and from the Wikipedia articles on Crimes in Chicago [8] and Crimes in Detroit [9].
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Figure 2: Comparison of the homicides trends (absolute numbers, without any population adjustments, like per 100,000) over the last nearly four decades.
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The bar graph labeled Figure 1 is reproduced from Statistical Reports of the Chicago Police Department. It is the very first graph in that report. Notice the steady decline over the last two plus decades (1991-2011) The bar graph given as Figure 2 is based on information that I was able to put together from the sources just cited.
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very simple thing that for some reason no middle or high school math teacher seems to have bothered to emphasize. Or, if they did, none of us seem to have bothered to remember it and apply it in our daily lives. If we have a table of x and y data, like murders and population, we must first study the relation between x and y before blindly using y/x ratios, which is what Mayor Bloomberg is guilty of when he compares NYC with DC or Detroit. These are convenient comparisons for the purpose of political rhetoric but they are not sound mathematical logic as I will show briefly. Hopefully, more will be convinced that I might be on the right track here. When we prepare a x-y graph of our observations, such as the homicides versus population graph, we will often find what appears to be just a scatter. But, if you look carefully beneath it and study this scatter you will find that the data often falls along a straight line with the general equation y = hx + c. In other words, we encounter a nonzero intercept c. What does this means? Now, we have three possibilities. Type I Positive slope h, negative intercept c (h > 0, c < 0): The ratio y/x increases as both x and y increase. Type II: Positive slope h, positive intercept c (h > 0, c > 0): The ratio y/x decreases as both x and y increase, Type I slope is typically less than Type II slope. Type II leads to situations like death rates decreasing while death are increasing, or the number of unemployed increasing with unemployment rate decreasing. Type III: Negative slope h, positive intercept c (h < 0, c > 0): The ratio y/x decreases as x increases and y decreases. The most common example of this traffic fatality studies for US as a whole but here to fluctuations in the rate year over year must be considered (see references cited). The firearms-homicides graph for the US is another. The x-y relations revealed by such a study, as we will see now, provides the proper basis for comparison. Actually, the relation is a more complex one and
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is nonlinear, of the type y = mxne-ax, where m, n, and a are constants to be deduced from the empirical observations. This mathematical model implies that the number of guns-related fatalities (y) going through a maximum, as the time (the variable x) increases. The data for Chicago (see Wikipedia article cited) clearly reveals the existence of such a maximum point (with x here being time) between 1974 (y = 970 homicides) and 1990 (y = 851 homicides) after which there has been a steady decrease; see Figure C.
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also observed in the graph of murders for the entire state of Illinois if we examine the data for 1960-2011 (click here); see also Philip Bump at the Atlantic Wire here (click here). Read an interesting perception on crime differences between cities (click here). The location of the maximum point on the power-law curve is determined readily since the derivative dy/dx = (n ax)(y/x) is positive for small x < n/a and negative for large x > n/a. The maximum point occurs when dy/dx = 0 or when x = n/a. (For y = xn dy/dx = nxn-1 = n(y/x) and for y = e-ax, dy/dx = -ae-ax). The three types of linear relations mentioned above are local line segments of this general nonlinear curve. To return to our present discussion, Mayor Bloomberg should actually be comparing New York with Austin, TX, or San Jose CA, or San Diego CA, if he really wants to make New York the model city with low crime rates. Each one of the assertions that I have made below will be established using mathematical analysis. It is actually quite simple and involves nothing more than an understanding of the meaning of what I have called the work function using the performance of the best baseball players. This has been discussed in details in other articles. A brief discussion may be found in Appendix 1. We will also cover this briefly in 5. If New York were more like: 1. Austin TX, the number of murders would have dropped to just 270 and if more like, 2. San Diego, the number of murders would have dropped to just 300 and if more like 3. San Jose, the number of murders would have declined to 398. The last may be just 21 less than 419 we homicides in 2012 but it is still a huge improvement, as Bloomberg said in the Press Release. So, lets put all
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the politics aside and see why Bloomberg should really be comparing New York with Austin, TX, or San Jose, CA or San Diego, CA.
New York, NY Los Angeles, CA Chicago, IL Houston, TX Phoenix, AZ San Antonio, TX San Diego, CA Philadelphia, PA Dallas, TX San Jose, CA San Francisco Austin, TX Detroit, MI Baltimore, MD Washington DC Cleveland, OH Newark, NJ
Data source: See References for each city listed at the end of the article.
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If you want to get admitted to Harvard, or Stanford, or MIT, or Berkley, you dont want to compare your efforts with the efforts made by the kids who are barely getting Cs or Ds or the kid getting Cs and Ds. (Sorry, I know grades dont count in life, only $$$$ do but this still serves as a great example for a country where politicians still about the great American family values and education system, which also got me to these shores a long time ago.) Now, look at the H-P diagram much more carefully. Lets start with our bad boys Detroit and Cleveland (meant in jest here, to keep things lighthearted while also having a serious discussion, no offense intended, please). Actually, I now live in Metro Detroit area. I have also lived on the west side of Cleveland, in the 1980s, while working jointly at Case Western Reserve University and NASA). So, I know these bad boys well. There are still wonderful things that can be said about both these cities. It is the sad decline in the US economy, which has been going for many unseen and unheard for decades prior to the financial crisis of 1988, which led to decline of these cities and their high crime rates now. Amazingly, notice that the (x, y) pair for Cleveland falls practically on the same ray A passing through the Detroit point. Baltimore, another member of the bad boys club, falls just below the ray A. The difference in the number of homicides that we observe is thus entirely due to the differences in the size of the population. Now, lets look at the good guys. The Big Boy here is New York. But, look at Los Angeles (the entire county) with just over 200 homicides, or San Jose, with 46 homicides. San Jose (SJ) is practically on the same line as NY. Austin, TX with only 27 homicides in 2012 (this is the corrected value as mentioned by the Austin Police Department, not 28) falls slightly below the NY-LA-SJ ray. If one were to use Mayor Bloombergs logic again, if NY were more like Austin, with a population of 0.818 million, or one-tenth the NY population, then NY should only have 270 homicides, well below the current 419 homicides. So, Bloomberg has lost all his bragging rights now! I just proved it here using the
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very same arguments, by just looking at the data for a different group of cities. But, the similarity in these trends is not obvious until we prepare the x-y diagram, or the H-P diagram. All of this just goes to show how deep and fundamental a problem that we have created for ourselves by this widespread use of y/x ratios in all walks of life. All that we do is compute literally hundreds, thousands, and millions of such y/x ratios, using modern computing available right now in our laptops or even in the palm of our hands, without ever considering the nature of the underlying x-y relation. The H-P diagram here is a snapshot at a fixed point in time (see my recent discussion of length contraction in Einsteins theory of relativity in E = mc2 article; the last one in reference list, Einstein also considers the snapshot at a fixed point in time). It will change from year to year. But there will always be the two extremes that we have considered here. For that matter, the H-P diagram here should be expanded to include more cities. However, I have considered most of the cities with larger populations. Hence, the conclusions are quite reliable, at this point in time for the US taken as a whole. The reader can now also verify the reasons for the two assertions with respect to San Jose, CA and San Diego, CA. If we examine the rest of the diagram, we see another remarkable pattern. Lets start the other bad boy Chicago. Now we see a group of three cities, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore all falling a virtually a single straight line (see Figure 4), with the general equation y = hx + c where h is the slope of the line and c is the nonzero intercept made by the line. We only need two (x, y) to determine the slope h and intercept c. Using the two extreme values Baltimore-Chicago: y = hx + c = 139x + 130.5 Type II behavior The slope h = (506 217)/(2.696 0.261) = 289/2.075 = 139 Intercept c = y1 hx1 = y2 hx2 = 130.5 since we know h and also (x, y) for each end point. Now, use this equation to predict the homicides for Philly. We get 343, which is quite close to the observed value of 329.
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theory of relativity. The photoelectric law (see references for more details) can be written as y = hx + c = K = ( W) = hf W. The maximum energy of the electron (K) is less than the energy of the photon ( = hf = hx), the name given to a particle of light. The missing energy (c = - W) tells us about the difficulty of producing the electron and is called the work function of the metal. The K-f graph for various metals is a series of parallels. For those who have trouble with the Einsteinian physics analogy, we can think of the nonzero c, instead, like the work function that is also observed in baseball, when we analyze the game-by-game batting logs of an elite player like Babe Ruth (remember the standard of excellence). The At Bats-Hits diagram for a baseball player also has the equation y = hx + c where x is the At Bats and y the Hits. The graph is a series of parallels all with the slope h = 1.000 the PERFECT single game batting average (BA). The nonzero c is related to the number of missing hits; see discussion of Babe Ruth, and Miguel Cabreras stats. Thus, the baseball work function tells us about the difficulty of producing hits and why the BA deviates from the ideal value. Besides the skill of the player himself, it also covers many other complex factors related to the fascinating game of baseball. In the same way, the nonzero c in the homicide stats tells us something about the difficulty of observing the event called a homicide in different cities. The evidence here seems to indicate that the crime environment is pretty much the same in the three cities of the present discussion. I am sure criminal experts may have some additional insights to offer based on this theoretical conjecture being advanced here. By the way, I should also caution you here. In a famous conversation with Werner Heisenberg (who enunciated the Uncertainty Principle in Quantum Physics), Einstein told a shocked, and much younger, Heisenberg, It is theory that dictates what you can observe. Heisenberg was trying to impress upon Einstein what he had accomplished by constructing a theory for subatomic particles that takes into account only observable phenomena. Then he tried to suggest that Einstein had done the same with his own theory of relativity. To which Einstein, If he had done so, it must be all nonsense. It is theory that
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dictates what we can observe. (click here). In other words, Einstein was willing to discount even his own theory to counter Heisenbergs arguments. City Pairs Population, Homicides, Change, Change True rate, x y x y h = y/x Phoenix, AZ 1.446 123 Washington DC 0.602 88 0.844 35 41.469 San Antonio, TX 1.327 92 San Francisco 0.805 68 0.522 24 45.977 New York, NY 8.175 419 San Jose, CA 0.946 46 7.229 373 51.598 The x-y graph must be prepared first to permit grouping of cities with similar populations to reveal that they follow roughly parallel line. The slope h is per million of population (the per 100,000 slope will be one-tenth). New York and San Jose are connected by the line y = 51.6x 2.811 and so on. The ray through NYC has the equation y = mx = 51.25. In other words, the (x, y) pairs for NYC and San Jose are practically on the same straight line. For Los Angeles (entire county), y = 53.52x. Thus, SJ, LA, NYC fall on practically the same straight line. The other slopes h calculated are not significantly different and makes these essentially parallel lines. Once a theory takes root, empirical observations always seem to follow. At least, I can see the work function in this and many similar problems where we are confronted with large masses (x, y) observations dealing with complex phenomena. Now, if you take a look at the graph again a bit more carefully, you can actually start seeing a number of data points following roughly parallel lines, just as in the At Bats-Hits diagram of a baseball player, or the K-f graphs for various metals in photoelectric experiments. We consider the following (x, y) pairs. Newark-Houston: y = hx + c = 68x + 73.1, or 68 homicides per million Cleveland and Dallas fall virtually on this same line.
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The (x, y) pairs for San Francisco (68 homicides), Washington DC (88 homicides), San Antonio, TX and Phoenix, AZ can all be seen to stagger around another parallel to this Newark-Houston line.
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AZ, San Antonio, TX, San Jose, CA and San Diego, CA. The Homicides-Population diagram here clearly shows that New York is NOT doing much better than Los Angeles (only homicides for the entire LA County, not city of LA is available and is equal to 203 in 2012). It is also not doing much better than San Jose, CA (population 0.946 million, which is higher than the population of Washington DC, at 0.602 million). Actually San Jose had 46 murders, or two less than the 48 murders predicted using the NYC ray, y = mx = 51.25x (m = homicides rate per million). San Diego, CA had an even lower number of murders, 48 versus 67 predicted. Phoenix. AZ and San Antonio, TX are also quite comparable.
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line y = hx + c = 43.99x + 59.39. The slope h is the rate of increases of homicides as the population x increases and is like the marginal tax rate in tax law. Now, we see that Los Angeles with roughly one-half the population of NYC is actually doing much better than NYC. Furthermore, the other three cities with smaller populations are also doing significantly better than NYC with 2012 homicides falling below the NYC-Phoenix reference Line A. Specifically, we can envision a parallel to the NYC-Phoenix Line A passing through San Diego, a Type I line with the equation y = 43.99x 9.49. The nonzero intercept c has changed from a positive to a negative value and this means reduced homicides. This is the significance of the work function mentioned earlier to discuss the significance of the nonzero in the general law y = hx + c relating homicides and population.
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practically on this NYC-SA line. Again we can envision parallels to this reference line passing through the data points for each of the other cities. The parallel through San Diego is again illustrated and has the equation y = 47.75x 14.41. Again the nonzero intercept c goes from positive to negative. In baseball statistics, we see a similar behavior with the nonzero c clearing being related to the skill of a baseball player. Babe Ruth had a negative c but his Yankee teammate Lou Gehrig had a positive c (both in the 1927 season when Babe Ruth set the single-season home run record of 60 and Lou Gehrig lost the HR race.) Likewise, the nonzero c here is also like a work function and determines the number of homicides (similar to hits produced in baseball). Phoenix falls just above the new reference line chosen here (higher work function). The New York record is compared again in Figure 5, with just five of the cities in Table 2, see also Table 3. This provides, IMHO, a nice framework within which we can focus not only the debate on gun violence but also the more important need to reduce these tragic firearms-related deaths.
Cleveland for more than two decades. Even if the cop did not, the young women might have noticed the cop making his rounds and made the dash to freedom sooner. We can only speculate.
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to take such steps, instead of indulging in politically-motivated mocking of the sustainability of downward homicide trends, will things change for real. All of the 13 murders committed in the first 9 days of the New Year (2013), in Chicago, were black-on-black murders in the poorest of neighborhoods (click here; Chicago on pace for 527 killings in 2013, if it is sustained). The difference is what America what it is. Just see what has been accomplished in NYC, Figure D. The same applies to many other major cities across the country and also for the US as a whole. Lofty rhetoric did not get us far. But, a little compassion for our fellow human beings and their plights will - be it for those women in the attic, or the long term unemployed dad, or the increasing millions of young college graduates who are unemployed (and becoming unemployable since they have not gained any job experience). All we have to do is take the first step. The cost-cutting mantra drove a once great company (the old) General Motors into bankruptcy, because it was a bankrupt philosophy which puts no premium on the future of the company. The same philosophy of cost-cutting, in the government, we call it budget cuts, will drive this great country also into ruin. Icelanders have spoken and voted the austerity guys out of office. Will Americans learn from the Iceland example? Japan with the highest Debt/GDP ratios that the developed world has seen is shown signs of prosperity again after nearly two decades of Debt/GDP ratio well over 100% and reaching nearly 215% in 2012. The comparison with Iceland is quite apt since Icelanders voted their version of the Republicans out of office (for getting them into their financial mess around the same time in 2008). The Democrats version of Icelandic politicians outdid the Republicans and imposed austerity programs without paying attention to the suffering of the vast Icelandic majority. Now, they got the boot too and Republicans who got the mess started have now promised a change of heart and vow to out-Democrat the Democrats.
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Let me say no more. I just observe, and analyze data. And, I know the theory. All the observations seem to fall in place. Yet, no else seems to see the pattern that I can see, written over the broad landscape of the financial world, the economics world, the social, political, and cultural, and environmental trends, that all beg the use of x-y diagrams such as those I have advocated here. Economics is a dismal science for a reason. It primarily uses such dismal y/x ratios. Whatever happened to that great idea of marginal tax rate, or the use of the slope h = y/x that is the foundation of all tax laws? Let me repeat once more, if y = hx + c, the ratio y/x = h + (c/x) can either increase or decrease in complicated ways (six ways) as x increases or decreases. This is the reason for the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics! (Click here for latest use for homicides). Right now, nobody is thinking about any x-y relations, or preparing the x-y diagrams like we have done here. The entire US tax code can be reduced to the equation y = mx + c (click here) where the slope m of the straight line relating taxable income (x) to taxes owed (y) is the marginal tax rate. This fixed tax rate (m) applies for a range of incomes (called the tax bracket) and keeps on increasing as (taxable) incomes increase. One can only wonder what would happen if all citizens had been encouraged to use this tax equation, instead of the dumbed down tax tables. Perhaps, then the true significance of the ratios y/x and m = dy/dx or y/x would have been understood by all. It is still not too late. Just keep staring at Figures 3 and 5 and other related illustrations here. A new view of gun deaths across America will emerge. It is that simple.
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The first nine days, considered alone, would put Chicago on pace for 527 homicides in 2013 since 13/9 = 1.444 and so for x = 365, y = 527.
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After many hours of futile searches I have still not been to find the missing data in the graph for Chicago, between 1960 to 1990. Many websites only seem to be giving the run around. The data for Illinois is available from 1960 but for Chicago, only from 1985. I really wish some of the sources cited had made things (especially LA where I still cannot find the figure for the City of LA, only LA County is given) a bit easier by providing also a running historical tally of homicides, along with the population figures (with per 100,000 rates are used), just like the US government does with its Budget. Yes! Surprise we can learn from what the US government does. We have receipts, outlays and surpluses (or deficits) all the way to George Washington. Well, I have made my suggestion. It is very simple. We are dealing with precious lives lost, both young and old, and what policies can best addressed this tragic and avoidable loss of life. If deaths due to cancer, or heart disease, are a concern and engage our national attention (to name just a couple prominent examples), then firearms related homicides and suicides must also engage our attention. Unlike cancer or heart disease, a homicide can take away a very young life, in a moment. This is also what Mayor Bloomberg was talking about when he was addressing the NYPD and the difference the NYC police were making in the lives of real people.
8. Conclusions
My writing of this article coincides with the six month mark of the Newtown, CT, elementary school shootings that shocked the nation and the world. This is a follow up on the recent articles on firearms-related deaths where I have also analyzed the extensive data on gun violence presented by Gerney, Parsons, and Posner (America Under the Gun, click here). This article is also a natural outcome of my long term interest in how simple y/x ratios behave and how we use them, or often abuse them. Mayor Bloombergs comparisons therefore immediately caught my attention. Society has changed in the last 50+ years. Society is changing. Thus, we cannot overlook the fact that:
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a) Homicides have been going down in NYC for a long time now, after reaching a peak in 1990 (with 2245 homicides). The most dramatic drop was between 1992 and 2000 and this has continued yielding the record low number of just 419 in 2012. b) The same trend of decreasing homicides is observed in other major cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. c) Police Departments in other cities have actually learned valuable lessons from NYPD and applied them to reduce the tragic effects of gang wars and resulting senseless deaths. d) If we wish to devote resources to reduce traffic fatalities (by improving vehicle safety features, highway engineering and vigorous enforcement of common sense traffic laws, such as seat belt laws), we can do the same with firearms-related deaths. Actually, as discussed in other articles the firearms suicides/homicides ratio is in excess of 1 for 36 of the 44 states for which data is currently available. e) Efforts to reduce cancer deaths (smoking bans, for example) and deaths due to heart disease and diabetes (emphasis on changes in personal habits such as exercise and diet) have all resulted in personal behavior modifications. The same applies if we are serious about reducing firearms-related deaths. The willingness to make personal changes, for the greater common good, is the central message of all the above listed types of fatalities that have engaged our attention in recent years. This seems to be sorely lacking in the current debate on gun violence. Reducing these fatalities is as URGENT a matter as reducing the other types of fatalities mentioned above. Perhaps, we do NOT feel this could happen to US. It is always US with the other types of fatalities. But, it is always THEM when it comes to firearms-related deaths. Perhaps, herein lies the unrecognized problem. Remember, that the firearms suicides data is telling us very clearly that Americans are NOT just killing each other with their guns. More are blowing their own brains off especially in the quite neighborhoods, away from the large metropolitan cities, across all states.
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We need a National Gun Safety Act, just like the National Traffic Safety Act. We will have it when these facts begin to enter into the American consciousness. It was legislation that led (or at least believed to have led), to a reduction in many types of deaths. Gun violence and related deaths (both homicides and suicides) are just as preventable as traffic fatalities, deaths due to smoking and cancer, in general, and other leading causes of deaths like heart disease and diabetes. Right now, it is all partisan rhetoric and outright Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics and Hate! Finally, going beyond gun violence and the comparison of the homicide rates in various US cities, the discussion here is also aimed at calling attention to a serious systemic problem with all types of data analysis where we use y/x ratios (especially financial and economic data, and our observations on various social, political, cultural, and environmental trends). Important conclusions are being drawn and policies are being formulated, as shown here, by relying on y/x ratios without a full understanding of the nature of the x-y relations.
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ether. These points are also discussed by Millikan (see references), in the introduction to his 1916 papers on the photoelectric effect. Einsteins photoelectric law, which was tested experimentally by Millikan, provides a simple solution to this puzzling observation. In his 1905 paper, Einstein first shows (by considering a property of light radiation known as the entropy, see Neuenschwander in references) that light can be viewed as a stream of particles, each having the elementary energy quantum , conceived just a few years ago by Planck, in 1900. As applied to photoelectricity, this means that the maximum kinetic energy K of the electron produced will be less than and is given by K = W where W is the work function for the metal, the minimum energy that is needed to produce the electron. The quantity W represents the energy that must be given up to overcome the forces binding the electron to the metal. Since = hf, this means that the maximum kinetic energy K = hf W = h(f f0), which is a linear equation of the type y = hx + c. Here h is the Planck constant and f is the frequency of light and W = hf0. The cut-off frequency observed by Lenard is thus the physical manifestation of the work function of the metal. From an experimental standpoint, the theory as proposed by Einstein means that The K-f graph for a metal is a straight line with the slope h. The K-f graph for different metals is a series of parallels, with the slope h, and an intercept c = - W. As discussed in the main text, exactly similar conclusions can be drawn when we consider the game-by-game batting stats of a baseball player. The At bats versus Hits graph is also a series of parallels, having the slope h = 1.000 and the intercept c = 0, -1, -2, etc. being the number of missing hits. The nonzero c is thus the work function for a baseball player. Likewise, the nonzero c observed when we analyze our (x, y) observations on many different problems of interest to us can also be thought of as a work function. In each case, the work function tells us something about the difficulty of observing the event of interest: the production of an electron, the production of a hit (or home runs, if home runs are analyzed), or the event
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known as a homicide in gun violence studies. This is illustrated in Figure 6 with the 2012 homicides data for the ten most dangerous cities, see Ref. [29]. Flint, MI, with a population of 101,632, or about 0.1 million, with 63 homicides and 2729.5 violent crimes (murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assaults) was ranked as the most dangerous city in the US, based on the y/x ratio analysis with the denominator x being the population. Since Flint has the lowest population among the other cities used in this comparison, its homicide rate, and the violent crimes rate is also the highest. This is illustrated by the ray A passing through the (x, y) pair for Flint, in Figure 6. The ray A has the equation y = mx and passes through the origin. For Flint m = y/x = 619.88 homicides per million (or 62 per 100,000).
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Figure 6: Illustration of the idea of a work function in gun violence studies. The homicides and population data for the ten most dangerous US cities as reported by the FBI. The data was compiled by Weigley, Hess, and Sauter, see Refs. [29,30]. The raw data for the Top ten can be found in Ref. [29].
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The ray A passing through the Flint (x, y) pair serves as a reference. The data for all the other cities, including Detroit and Memphis, falls below this ray. We can envision similar rays for each city, i.e., straight lines which join the (x, y) pair back to the origin. This is what we do now, with y/x ratio analysis. Instead, we can envision a series of parallels through the data set, with the general equation y = hx + c where h = 619.88, as for Flint. However the nonzero intercept c < 0 and this means, after adjusting for the differences in population, the number of homicides observed is lower in each of these cities, compared to Flint. The nonzero c is the work function. It tells us something about the crime environment, just like the environment in which a baseball player produces hits or home runs, or the environment in a metal from which electrons are produced. The Homicides-Population diagram also reveals relationships between apparently dissimilar cities. For example, Detroit, MI, Birmingham, AL, and New Haven, CT are seen to fall on essentially the same parallel, each with lower murders than Flint, after accounting for the population difference. The work function is the same for all these cities. If the population increases by x, the murders increase by y = hx; the rate of increase of murders h = y/x is a constant. Notice also that the data for other cities seem to line up along roughly parallel lines to the main reference line. Baltimore (219 murders) and Cleveland (84 murders) are joined by a line with the slope h = (219 84)/(0.625 0.394) = 583 which is roughly the same as the slope h = m = 620 for the ray through Flint. The same applies for Stockton, CA and Oakland, CA which fall on a roughly parallel line with the slope h = 548 murders per million. The lower total homicides observed in NYC (419 in 2012) is thus due to the reduced work function. NYC is, of course, outside the scale of the graph in Figure 6 which considers only cities with populations under one million. The work function thus encompasses many complex factors such poverty rate, the unemployment rate, the presence of gangs, the population density, the gap between the haves and the have-nots [31,32]. The effects of all these
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variables cannot be quantified easily. However, the idea of work function, and the numerical value of the nonzero intercept c could serve as a valuable tool to quantify these factors.
The single (x, y) for New York City can thus be broken up into five(x, y) pairs for the individual boroughs. This is illustrated in Figure 7. The homicides rates, the ratio y/x, for the individual boroughs vary from a low of 1.79 per 100,000 for Staten Island to a high of 8.17 per 100,000 for Bronx. Nonetheless,
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the data points scatter around, rather tightly, along the NYC ray with the equation y = mx = 5.125 where m = 5.125 per 100,000 is the murder rate for NYC as a whole, used by Mayor Bloomberg in his comparisons.
600
y = mx = 51.25x
500
400
NYC
300
Brooklyn
200
Bronx
100
Queens Manhattan
2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00 12.00
0 0.00
Population, x [millions]
Figure 7: The break down NYC murders for the five boroughs. The data for the five boroughs is scattered around the ray for NYC with the equation y = mx, with Brooklyn and Bronx falling above the ray and Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island falling below the ray. The raw data can be found in Refs. [33-35]. Instead of associating individual rays, or murder rates y/x, like we now do, with each borough, we could think of the five boroughs as falling on parallels to the NYC ray with Bronx and Brooklyn having a positive intercept c and Queens and Manhattan having a negative intercept c, as illustrated in Figure 8. The idea of a work function can thus be associated with what we think as more dangerous, or less dangerous, cities or boroughs. An interesting insight offered by this idea of a work function is that Queens is actually safer than Staten Island, with lower total murders, after adjusting
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for the population. The murder rate y/x leads to the opposite conclusion (Staten Island is safer with lower per capita murders). This can be appreciated from the following. The parallel passing through the Staten Island data has the equation y = 51.25x 15.658. Substitute x = 0.469 in this equation and we get y = 8, the number of murders observed for Staten Island. Now extrapolate along this Staten Island parallel to the value x = 2.231, the population for Queens and we get y = 99 murders for Queens. But, the actual murders observed were 84 and hence Queens is actually safer than Staten Island, given the higher population. The same goes for Manhattan with 63 murders instead of 66 predicted if Manhattan were to fall on the Staten Island parallel.
500
400
y = 51.25x + 42.14
300
200
y = 51.25x 30.55
100
-100 0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00 10.00
Population, x [millions]
Figure 8: Illustration of a work function for the NYC boroughs. Bronx, with the c = 42.14 (slope m for NYC is per million) defines the upper limit of murders. Brooklyn falls below this parallel and is thus safer, with lower murders after adjusting for the population. Queens and Manhattan fall on the lower parallel
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with Queens setting the lower limit with c = - 30.55. Queens is actually safer than Staten Island, after adjusting for the population. And, so is Manhattan. What does this mean? What was the reason for the 8 murders observed in 2012 in Staten Island? Staten Island should become totally murder free! That is what NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg should be looking forward to and that would represent the kind of progress that we should all be looking forward to.
Reference List
1. News from the Blue Room, For Immediate Release, April 30, 2013, http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3da f2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc _name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F201 3a%2Fpr151-13.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1 Last year, we had a
record low 419 murders. If instead we had had Washington, DCs murder rate, nearly 1,200 New Yorkers would have been murdered last year instead of 419. If we had Chicagos murder rate, more than 1,400 New Yorkers would have been murdered last year instead of 419. If we have Philadelphias murder rate, more than 1,700 New Yorkers would have been murdered last year instead of 419. If we had Baltimores, it would have been more than 2,900 murders last year. And if we had had Detroits murder rate, more than 4,500 New Yorkers would have been murdered last year instead of 419. Thats a factor of ten. Not only are you saving all those lives by preventing those murders, youre also keeping young people from going to jail and to prison.
2. Mayor Michael Bloombergs Detroit Comments Compare Citys Crime Stats with New York, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/mayor-bloombergdetroit_n_3188383.html 3. Bing: Bloombergs murder rate comments sad, inappropriate, by David Shepardson, the Detroit, News, April 30, 2013, http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130430/METRO01/304300422 4. Detroit Tops The 2012 List Of Americas Most Dangerous Cities, Forbes Magazine, by Daniel Fisher, Published October 18, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/10/18/detroit-tops-thePage | 38
2012-list-of-americas-most-dangerous-cities/ Actual murders not stated, only population and per 100,000 rate. 5. Americas 10 Deadliest Cities in 2012, by Lauren Galick,
http://www.policymic.com/articles/22686/america-s-10-deadliest-cities-2012
6. Chicago Tactics Put Major Dent in Killing Trends, by Monica Davey, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/us/chicago-homicides-fall-by-34percent-so-far-this-year.html?pagewanted=all 7. Chicago Police News Desk Statistical Report https://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/News/Stat istical%20Reports/Murder%20Reports Click on 2011 Report to find the graph reproduced here. 8. Crime in Chicago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago 9. Crime in Detroit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Detroit 10. List of United States Cities Population,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
11. Washington DC Finishes 2012 with fewer than 100 homicides, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/01/nation/la-na-nn-washington-dc2012-homicides-20130101 12. Philadelphias murder rate up slightly in 2012 http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local//region/49034-in-2012philadelphias-murder-rate-rises-slightly 13. The Baltimore Sun, http://data.baltimoresun.com/bingmaps/homicides/ 14. The LA Times Homicides Project, see LA County figure of 203, City of LA must be even lower http://www.lacountymurders.com/pyear_stats.cfm ; the murder maps may look pretty but are useless without legends which give the actual numbers at least for City of LA. Cant believe the software developer incorporate this detail! 15. HPD Calls Houstons Murder Rate Incredibly Low, http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-s2012-murder-total-incredibly-low-4158736.php 16. Crime Rates for San Antonio, TX, Neighborhood Scout, http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/tx/san-antonio/crime/#data Both the rape and the murder rates (per 1000) for San Antonio, TX, were higher than for US; since it was not clear if the stats were for 2012, decided to check another source. Population given as 1,359,758 in line with the 2010 census.
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17. Murder City: Police Stats Show 2012 Had More Kills in San Antonio, http://sacurrent.com/news/murder-city-police-stats-show-2012-hadmore-kills-in-san-antonio-1.1433130 Justifiable homicides jumped from 6 to 15 and 92 murder cases opened for homicides 18. Death at the gun range, Jan 24, 2013, by Michael Washburn, http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/blog/article/death-at-the-gunrange-five-firearm-deaths-in-firearm-friendly-environments/index.html 19. Dallas sees rise in murder but 2012 still lowest in decades, http://www.dallasnews.com/news/communitynews/dallas/headlines/20130102-dallas-sees-rise-in-murders-but-2012total-among-lowest-in-decades.ece 20. Why so many murders sin Chicago? By Aaron M. Renn, http://www.newgeography.com/content/003456-why-are-there-somany-murders-chicago Author says LA 29 murders I got 555 murders for LA from Homicides Project; check it out. 21. Analysis: Despite Record Homicide Numbers San Jose Still Relatively Safe, by Robert Salonga, http://www.mercurynews.com/crime22. Austin Police Department, Crime http://austintexas.gov/resident/crime Look under Annual Crime and Traffic Reports 2011 (may take some navigating) latest year for which numbers are available. Since annual report for 2011 was issued in November 2012, official 2012 figures will not available for a few months. Link to the final page I got to is here http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/2011_crime_and_traffic_re port__final__111512.pdf 23. City of Phoenix, Monthly Count of Actual Offenses known to Police, http://phoenix.gov/webcms/groups/internet/@inter/@dept/@police/do cuments/web_content/097388.pdf Figures for calendar year 2012, Murder plus non-negligent manslaughter equals 123, manslaughter by negligence 4 and total criminal homicides 127. 24. Annual Report of Chicago Police Department 1967, http://chicagocop.lapa1961.com/resources/documents_archive/cpd_annu al_reports/Chicago%20Police%20Department%20Annual%20Report%20 -%201967.pdf 1966 and 1967 murders 649 and 741, respectively; see also http://chicagocop.lapa1961.com/htm/history/documents_archive/cpd_an nual_reports.htm#1960%27s Likewise for many other years. 25. Chicago Police Department Reports, for several years http://chicagocop.lapa1961.com/htm/history/documents_archive/cpd_an nual_reports.htm#1960%27s
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courts/ci_22289797/analysis-despite-record-homicide-numbers-san-jose-still
26. Why do Murder Rates Spike in Some Cities and Plumett in Others? By Jake Blumgart, Next City, January 9, 2013, http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/why-murder-rate-spike-in-some-citiesand-plummet-in-others 27. Bronx Borough Presidents Office http://bronxboropres.nyc.gov/pdf/bronx%20murder-rate-data-2013-0123.pdf Provides list of 2012 murders in 15 cities, including NYC and Bronx borough, and their population. 28. USA Murder Rate at Record Low, by Rick Nevin, May 15, 2013, http://www.ricknevin.com/uploads/USA_Murder_Rate_at_Historic_Record _Low.pdf This study emphasis lead exposure risks during pre-school years with declining homicides rates. To quote, Lead exposure trends have presaged USA homicide trends with a 21-year time lag, reflecting the behavioral impact of early childhood neurodevelopmental damage when those children reach peak ages of homicide offending in their late teens and early 20s. 29. FBI Data ranks Flint, Detroit highest on Most Dangerous Cities in America list, June 14, 2013, Includes data for the Top ten, http://www.freep.com/article/20130614/NEWS05/306140059/FBIdata-ranks-Flint-Detroit-highest-Most-Dangerous-Cities-America-list 30. The Most Dangerous Cities in America, 2013, by Samuel Weigley, Alexander E. M. Hess, and Michael B. Sauter, 24/7 Wall St.com http://homes.yahoo.com/news/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america-2013-201732579.html Data on Violent Crimes (murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault). 31. Why 3 of Americas Most Dangerous Cities are in Connecticut? Ctpost.com By Pamela Engel, June 14, 2013, http://www.ctpost.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Why-3-OfAmerica-s-Most-Dangerous-Cities-Are-In-4601714.php Connecticut cities
Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford are all among the 25 most dangerous cities in America, according to our analysis of violent crime per capita. What's wrong with Connecticut? First of all, the state faces a growing gang problem.
32. The 25 Most Dangerous Cities of America, Business Insider, By Ann Margaret Warner, Erin Fuchs, and Gus Lubin, June 13, 2013, http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dangerous-cities-in-america-2013-
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6?utm_source=hearst&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=allverticals#2 5-milwaukee-wis-1 33. New York City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City with population of each borough (July 2012 estimates) 34. USA: New York City Boroughs, http://www.citypopulation.de/php/usanewyorkcity.php Populations of all boroughs, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2012 35. If NYCs Boroughs Were their Own Cities, http://www.nakedapartments.com/blog/population-nyc-borough/
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World-will-change-forever-if-Wall-Street-starts-analyzing-financial-datalike-we-do-baseball-stats-Miguel-Cabrera 41. What is Wrong with Ratio Analysis? Baseball Offers an Interesting Example with Wide Applications, Published May 31, 2013. http://www.scribd.com/doc/144798463/What-is-Wrong-With-RatioAnalysis-Baseball-Offers-an-Interesting-Example-with-Wider-Applications 42. Is Miguel Cabrera on Pace to Break Hack Wilsons Single-Season RBI Record?, Published May 28, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/144083838/Is-Miguel-Cabrera-on-Pace-toBreak-Hack-Wilson-s-Single-Season-RBI-Record-YES-Can-I-Changed-MyMind-on-This-Read-On-Now 43. Fundamental Concepts in Data Analysis, Published May 29, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/144351498/Fundamental-Concepts-in-DataAnalysis
2.
3.
4.
On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light, Paper 5, in Einsteins Miraculous Year: Five Papers that changed the face of physics, Princeton Univ. Press (1998). http://press.princeton.edu/einstein/materials/light_quanta.pdf Einsteins Quanta, Entropy, and the Photoelectric Effect, by Dwight E. Neuenschwander, Excellent discussion about how Einstein arrives at his conception of light quanta from the property called entropy possessed by
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5.
Einsteins Photoelectric Equation and Contact Electromotive Force, by R. A. Millikan (click here), Phys. Rev., Vol. VII, No. 1 (1916), Second Series, pp. 18-32. In this first paper, published in 1916, Millikan provides only two data points (V0 and f values) for the experiments with lithium metal. 6. A Direct Photoelectric determination of the Plancks h, by Robert A Millikan, (click here) Phys. Rev. Vol. VII No. 3 (1916), Second Series, pp. 355-390 http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/leonelli/PHY3320/millikan.pdf More detailed experiments with lithium (5 data points) and sodium (6 data points) are presented in this second paper, also published in 1916. 7. The electron and light quant from experimental point of view, May 23, 1924, Nobel Lecture, by Robert Millikan, see Figure 4 on page 63, for experiments with sodium. The straight line graph for photoelectric experiments confirms Einsteins law. The slope of the graph gives the universal Planck constant h, one of the fundamental constants of nature. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1923/millika n-lecture.pdf 8. The Photoelectric Effect, by M. Brandl, Project PhysNet, http://www.ifsc.usp.br/~lavfis/BancoApostilasImagens/ApEfFotoeletrico /The%20Photoelectric%20Effect%20-%20m213.pdf See sketch on page 5 showing parallel lines (K-f graph) for sodium and potassium. 9. Focus: Centennial Focus, Millikans Measurement of the Planck constant, Phys. Rev. Focus 3, 23 (1999), April 22, 1999, by Gerald Holton, http://physics.aps.org/story/v3/st23 10. The Millikan experiment to verify the Photoelectric relationship, http://tap.iop.org/atoms/quantum/502/file_47016.pdf 11. Photoelectric Effect, http://physics.tutorvista.com/modernphysics/photoelectric-effect.html 12. Theoretical concepts in physics, by M. S. Longair, Cambridge University Press (1984). http://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Concepts-PhysicsAlternative-Reasoning/dp/052152878X Chapters 9 to 15 (case studies IV and V) and also chapters under Case Study II (Maxwell equations and
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electromagnetism) are highly recommended and cover the Planck and Einstein laws which are actually founded upon Maxwells work. 13. Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg and Einstein (1925-1927), http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p07c.htm 14. How Einstein Himself Derives the Worlds Most Famous Equation, E = mc2, Published June 8, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/146483302/How-Einstein-Himself-Derivesthe-World-Most-Famous-Equation
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actually have many applications far beyond blackbody radiation studies where it was first conceived. Einsteins photoelectric law is a simple linear law and was deduced from Plancks non-linear law for describing blackbody radiation. It appears that financial and economic systems can be modeled using a similar approach. Finance, business, economics and management sciences now essentially seem to operate like astronomy and physics before the advent of Kepler and Newton. Finally, during my professional career, I also twice had the opportunity and great honor to make presentations to two Nobel laureates: first at NASA to Prof. Robert Schrieffer (1972 Physics Nobel Prize), who was the Chairman of the Schrieffer Committee appointed to review NASAs space flight experiments (following the loss of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986) and second at GM Research Labs to Prof. Robert Solow (1987 Nobel Prize in economics), who was Chairman of Corporate Research Review Committee, appointed by GM corporate management.
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