[civilized]

I want to temper the grumpiness of this comment a bit based on the productive discussion we had in the threads.

The authors developed an impressive model and got interesting results, and I appreciate the stated intent to shed light on enforcement bias patterns. However, I disagree with their claim that they have successfully done so in this paper. They have only provided an interesting prediction which needs to be verified with careful data analysis.

If increased crime in poor areas leads to decreased enforcement, we should be able to see this with well-chosen analysis, reporting and visualizations. We should be able to see examples of the claimed phenomenon happening in full context and have the opportunity to consider alternative causal explanations. If the claim still stands after this has been done, it deserves to be taken seriously. At present, the complexity of the model and the fact that Granger causality != Real causality prevent us from drawing any conclusions.

(The above does not refer to the claim about rich communities draining resources from poor communities, which seems to me like pure speculation. I can draw no logical connection between this claim and the results in the paper.)