An answer to the topic of crime

Editor:

In his book Factfulness, Hans Rosling introduces the concept of the “gap instinct,” which is our tendency to portray things in extremes – rich versus poor, good versus bad, funded versus unfunded. Mr. Green, chairman of the Santa Monica Police Officers Association, lures readers into an overly dramatic and divided perspective in his July 10 opinion piece titled “Opinion: Santa Monica massively underfunds its police department.” Mr. Green points out that Santa Monica allocates 25.7% of its general fund budget to the police department, while cities like Manhattan Beach and Glendale spend over 40% on public safety.

Relying on percentages can lead to misleading conclusions. For example, 83% of people killed in motorcycle accidents at this year's Sturgis Rally were riding Harley-Davidsons. This might lead you to conclude that Harley-Davidsons are inherently dangerous. However, since Harley-Davidsons make up 90% of the motorcycles there, that changes the interpretation.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation publishes crime statistics adjusted for population size, allowing comparison across regions and time periods. The same should be true for police budgets. If we rework Mr. Green's graph of police budget percentages using this approach, we get the following:

If we adjust Mr. Green's numbers for such comparisons, we find that Santa Monica's spending is not “drastically underfunded.” It is quite similar to that in Manhattan Beach and Culver City, and significantly higher than in Glendale, Torrance, and Huntington Beach.

A proper presentation of the data allows us to move away from Rosling's gap instinct — dividing things into two distinct and contradictory groups. In fact, the Santa Monica Police Department's funding is not “contrary to almost every comparable city in the area,” as Mr. Green claimed. Perhaps the real question is: What in the world is going on in Beverly Hills?

Philip Bretsky, Santa Monica

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