That's the worst possible interpretation of what that comment said.
- If there's a shooting 100ft from me, I don't care if it gets reported or not. I'm worried about getting in the crossfire.
- On the other hand, if there's a shooting 10 miles from me, I'm safe.
So it's perfectly logical to want to live in the second situation and avoid the first. Per-capita statistics mask the effects of the first and make the second look worse.
The best thing to do is to use per-capita stats when judging your likelihood of being a victim, and per-area stats when judging your likelihood of being near a crime.
Most people want to minimize both, and you shitting on them for it is bizarre.
Because as the Zendesk example that started this pointed out, an entire building (probably multiple!) of people were affected by this incident. There was 1 victim. It's going to seem insignificant on a per capita basis. There's thousands of people impacted by it, and possible dozens in the immediate vicinity who could be suffering from ongoing trauma having witnessed it.
Crime is not random lottery. It is concentrated and specific to certain places and circumstances. Thus, pretending that it is a stochastic process that is well characterized by per capita number over the whole city, and that if more people move into a bedroom community 20 miles from you, you automatically become safer because per capita numbers decreased - is innumerate at best. If you are present where the crime is concentrated, you risk is high, regardless of how many people live 20 miles from you but still in the same administrative unit. This should be obvious but some people still insist on focusing exclusively on large-area per-capita numbers.
I don't think you're reading those numbers correctly. The highest crime per capita is in Alberque, New Mexico, the 32nd largest city in the US, and that list is literally the crime rates of the 100 most populated cities, not the 100 cities in the US with the most crime.
Which small cities, in your opinion, are more dangerous than, say, Albuquerque? How many chances, say, a high-tech professional has to regularly find oneself in such a city because his company offices are located there and they have no choice but to go there regularly?
It is reasonable. Many totalitarian governments hide crime statistics. Many badly run police forces discourage reporting certain types of crime, like theft or robbery, to not mess up their stats. Of course, at some crime level, the difference between the official picture and the reality becomes impossible to hide, but the pretense usually lasts much longer even if it's obvious how hollow it is. But yes, it is very rational for the government whose interests are detached from the interests of the citizens, to manipulate the data, and they frequently do.
There's no need to outlaw reporting crime. You simply don't do anything with reports and the problem solves itself. Shootings tend to still get reported, but there's little point to reporting less serious crime once it's established that no action is taken. To that end, crime statistics are pretty hard to use in a meaningful way.
- If there's a shooting 100ft from me, I don't care if it gets reported or not. I'm worried about getting in the crossfire.
- On the other hand, if there's a shooting 10 miles from me, I'm safe.
So it's perfectly logical to want to live in the second situation and avoid the first. Per-capita statistics mask the effects of the first and make the second look worse.
The best thing to do is to use per-capita stats when judging your likelihood of being a victim, and per-area stats when judging your likelihood of being near a crime.
Most people want to minimize both, and you shitting on them for it is bizarre.