Ah, they LOVE their percentages, don't they. They don't mean anything to me or to anyone without numbers.
Just give me NUMBERS.
They state:"
Yet in towns with fewer than 10,000 residents, murders rose 5.5 percent, rape increased 1.4 percent, and robbery 3.9 percent."
Rose 5.5 percent. What does that mean?
Example: There is a small town of 10,000 population that had one (1) murder last year.
THIS year they had TWO (2) murders. Easy to figure percentages on that, isn't it.
Their MURDER RATE increased 100%. That's right, you doubled the murder rare. 100 percent increase in the murder rate.
So, percentages are just shuck and jive figures. Let's see, IF we have 19 (NINETEEN) people murdered in a town with a population of 10,000 or less, then ONE (1) more murder would be 5.5% increase.
Salem, Oregon had 3 murders in 2007, population 151,000 people.
At least we could do something with the numbers if they would give them to us without us having to go look them up.
They lump all the small towns together so they can do % numbers on them. Woopeedoo, they HAVE to lump them together or they don't have enough numbers to do the math.
Why the scare tactics? Well, that is easy to see, it is a LOT better to say: Murder in small towns up 5.5% than to say: Small towns with less than 10,000 population will/might/may have another murder in the next 19 years.
Yeah, they may... they may not, too.
Give us numbers of dead/murdered/whatever. Percentage rates tell us nothing.