Gov Romney: First, the bad news…
By Remington Steele Posted in 2008 — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
When the average Joe does a Google search, Massachusetts’s crime statistics are not your strong suit. Be careful how to draw attention to flawed data from your critics. What’s the good news? Responsible action as governor actually point to your critic’s flaw.
On Monday, Rudy Giuliani openly changed from his Big States strategy to competing in the smaller first states. From this Washington Post article, while in New Hampshire Giuliani states:
It is not inconceivable that you could, if you won Florida [after losing in the early states], turn the whole thing around,” Giuliani said. “I'd rather not do it that way. That would create ulcers for my entire staff and for me. . . . We want to win as many of the early ones as possible. That's why we're here and not in Florida right now.”
It appears like the ulcers are already happening with the Giuliani staff as this is definitely a change in strategy. Rudy then talked up his effectiveness over Romney, “He wasn't particularly good at reducing crime. I was the most effective in the country at reducing crime. Murder went up when he was governor. Robbery went up. Violent crimes went up.” The back and forth ensued:
Romney accused Giuliani of mangling his facts. “He's got a real problem checking facts,” Romney said during a Sunday afternoon interview, arguing that violent crime in Massachusetts declined 7 percent while he was governor. Giuliani aides immediately challenged that assertion.
I even read somewhere that when Giuliani heard of Romney’s response, he pulled out a sheet a paper in a huff claiming that he was right. That was the invitation to me to start Googling to see who was right. I went to the online Disaster Center which posts the statistics for Massachusetts and New York City. I did some quick compiling of the data and ran percentage formulas on the differences between years between the real number of crimes and the normalized crime per 100,000 inhabitants. Although New York City had better trends during 2003 – 2005 than Massachusetts, Giuliani was wrong. Either his aides can’t do spreadsheets or they lied about Romney’s record.
During Romney’s administration, murder and robbery did go up. I highlighted poor trends in red. 2003 was a statistical low outlier for murders, yet the trend was up afterwards. Even so Romney’s response was true, violent crimes did not go up from the end of 2002 to the end of 2006 (31,137 vs. 28,775, a 7.6% reduction in violent crime). Giuliani and his aides can challenge Romney’s statement all day long, Giuliani was wrong when he said that violent crimes went up in Massachusetts. This may be quibbling over numbers, but Giuliani is not used to “he who wallows in data”. Romney should not be underestimated when data is involved. And for Giuliani, data cuts both ways. During the least difference between murders per capita in 2005, you had a 57% greater chance of being murdered in New York City than in the state of Massachusetts (2.8 vs. 6.6 per 100K). It’s easy to see how campaigns can make data work towards their own means. This helped me realize the good news for Mitt Romney, its all apples and oranges.
Who has the Responsibility?
Which executive office has the greater responsibility for crimes committed, mayor or governor? Mayors are more directly responsible for the actions of the police force than Governors. Rudy would take offense if Gov. Pataki or Spitzer claimed responsibility for the success in crime reduction in New York City. Yet, 42% of the population of New York State is located in New York City. Gov. Pataki’s crime numbers are hugely influenced by the successes or failures of the mayors in his state. It is the same with Mitt Romney. The mayors in Massachusetts are widely Democrats with less than stellar records for cracking down on crime.
So what affect can Governors have on crime? Governors are responsible for the National Guard and State Police force when it comes to enforcement. Since marshal law is not a desired tool to use against crime, governors can affect the state police (namely highway patrol) and enact laws that are tough on crime. They can put pressure on mayors to enforce the laws on the books, but mayors don’t have to listen to governors.
What did Gov. Romney do about crime while in office? You can go here for the details. He past tougher laws on gang violence and activities, drunk driving, “Melanie’s Bill”, child protection, doubling the state crime lab’s space and equipment, and he tried to get the death penalty reinstated.
One interesting note is that he worked hard to try and get the state police federally certified to enforce border laws for illegal immigrants. Although there are red marks for Massachusetts’s success in reducing crime, the Democrat mayors hold more responsibility than the governor, just as Giuliani can claim success in New York City which affects over 42% of NY State’s stats. Ironically, I still have less chance of being murdered in Massachusetts than in New York City. Mitt Romney enacted tough crime laws and introduced a state wide effort to enforce immigration laws where others preferred a haven for illegal immigrants.
Nathan W.
** The stats I compiled list both the actual numbers of crimes and the normalized numbers of crimes per 100K inhabitants. The next section is of the differences year to year. And the third section is of the percentage change of those differences from year to year. New York City did not have 2006 figures.
Cross posted here.
Statistics are wonderful things that can be manipulated and distorted to say nearly anything if you know how to control for the factors you want to control for, and know what to include and what not to include.
Ron Silver once said "Give me enough footage of Michael Moore, and I'll make him look like an anorexic right winger."
He was talking about film editing, but the same basic principle applies in statistics. Give me enough data, and I'll make up some way of correlating that data that'll make a point you want it to make.
Anyhow, you might be right that violent crime did go down, if you agree with the way that the authors of this particular study categorized violent crime.
But I'm guessing that if Murders and Robberies went up, while 3rd degree Assaults went way down, the average citizen would think that violent crime went up. I wouldn't say it's unreasonable at all to include only serious violent crimes in such a statistical study. I don't know what the raw data of that would suggest, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be good if murders and robberies are up.
All violent crimes are not equal, and murders and robberies I'd say are probably the kinds of crimes that people want to avoid most. I don't really give a crap if I get a black eye from some drunk a$$hole at a bar, It'll be better in a week or two. But I care a lot if I'm murdered or robbed.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
And I think I mention that about statistics in my post. Just so everyone knows, if you follow the link to the stats page you see the following:
In 1930, the FBI assumed responsibility for managing the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, collecting data from 400 cities. By 2006, over 15,000 law enforcement agencies submitted crime reports to the FBI, but since not all jurisdictions provide reports there is a possibility that you won't find complete data on some of our agency crime report pages. In every case where the FBI has assigned a population to a jurisdiction, we are providing a page even though it may be blank. When a city located in a county starts submitting its own reports, the population assigned to the county is reduced to reflect that fact.
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.Source: FBI, Uniform Crime Reports
all of the MA violent crime decrease is due to a decrease in aggravated assault - a crime that, under UCR definitions would include many domestic violence crimes.
the issue with yor analysis is that Rudy wasn't mayor in 2002 or 2005. If you are going to compare records you need to look at NYC under Rudy (say 1999) to see where you have a better chance of getting murdered. Under Rudy, NYC was acclaimed as the safest big city in America. whatever you think of the issue's relevance, Rudy did more to reduce crime in NYC than Romney did in MA.
The point of my post is that the crime stats in Massachusetts are not pretty. I agree with your UCR assessments. My point is that Giuliani was wrong about his statement even though he was confounded at being wrong. Along with the analysis of responsibilities of mayors and governors.
You are correct that the analysis dates are mismatched, thank you. Rudy was elected in 1993 and served until 1999. We do not have statistics for 1999, but we do have 1995 and 2000. In 1995, the per capita murder rate was 16.1 per 100K inhabitants. In 2000, the per capita murder rate was 8.4 per 100K. I congradulate Rudy on his success in crime reduction, but that's not my point.
Data and statistics can be manipulated in any form. The raw data is the "bad news" for Romney and he has to deal with it. But, I can easily make a simple point that in the year 2000 soon after Rudy called it one of the safest places to live in America, you still had a 65% increased chance of being killed in NYC verses the worst year Romney was Governor in the state of Mass. (2.9 vs. 8.4 per 100K, 2006).
I agree that Rudy did more to reduce crime than Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston did. That is an apples to apples comparison. But if you'd like to comfort yourself with Rudy did more to fight crime than Romney, that's your perogative, but to me those were two different types of jobs and the democrat mayors in Massachusetts hold more responsibility for the Massachusetts record than Romney does unless you think he should've put marshal law in place to fight crime.
That this is a blog about numbers and you were off by two years in that comment on when Rudy left office.
“I think we are the team to beat in the NL East -- finally.” - Jimmy "MVP" Rollins, 1/23/07
My CPA father would be disappointed too. I did change from an accounting major to Information Systems in college. Go figure :P
Further thought on this makes me wonder which is better experience to become President, mayor or governor? Both are good executive positions, but on review, I think that situations that Governors find themselves in with state legislatures and state police are more similiar to the situations of the President with Congress and the Federal law enforcement agencies than those experiences from a mayor's perspective.