Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Photographic proof.

Things have been pretty sporty on the homicide front so far this year here in Naptown, with stiffs turning up in almost Chicago-esque numbers.

Most recently was a flurry of murders that had the newspeople decorating their cupcakes like something out of a Don Henley lyric when the police reported eight murders in a twelve-hour period, a clip that would entirely depopulate the city in just over 140 years if left unchecked.

I would like to note an interesting factoid: Police already happened to have mug shots of seven out of the eight corpses on file. Apparently none of the deceased heeded my advice.

It'd be interesting to know what having a mugshot on file with the po-po does to your chances of getting iced, statistically speaking.
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15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Way back when, the data indicated that 80% of the Central Booking customers in (location redacted) were repeat offenders, confirmed by the content of their arrest jackets, and of those 80%, 95% were locals, told me all I needed to know. AFAIK, the percentages have not changed in the intervening 15 years.

As someone once told me, "you carry a gun in case all your efforts at avoiding unpleasant confrontations fail" is still true. Back then I couldn't avoid them, now I can, and do.



Anonymous said...

They maxed out on frequent flier points.

The last ruckus we had at Job#2 the gentleman involved had 26 prior arrests and 22 convictions.

Gerry

Bubblehead Les. said...

I wonder how much the statistics would change if they were allowed to use those sealed Juvenile Records and Mug Shots?

rickn8or said...

Les, I can't speculate as to how the numbers would change, but I'm thinking a lot of the names/faces would be duplicated.

TBeck said...

There is a show on Netflix called "The Shift" that spotlights several detectives on Indy's homicide squad. One of them appears to be the flesh and blood person that Debra Morgan from "Dexter" was based upon.

Matthew said...

The recent Papachristos study more or less puts that observation in the "science is settled" column.

Conversely, if you don't know anyone who got a free headshot from the graybar photo studio, you'll most likely die in bed.

mikee said...

Tam,

Kellerman, in his very influential 1993 article in New England Journal of Medicine, provided not only the infamous correlation that having a gun in your home increased your risk of death by homicide by 43x, but also a slew of other correlations relating to gunshot death and lifestyle.

I recall that living in a rented apartment rather than a house with a mortgage was almost 2x more deadly than having a gun. Yet no one called for elimination of rental apartments, that I recall.

Having a household member arrested was very slightly less correlated with death by gunshot than having guns in the home.

Of course, this study has been shot so full of holes by less biased researchers using better data that you should take these conclusions with a whole pallet load of Morton's salt, which still pours when sociologists rain BS.

Windy Wilson said...

Mikee, and of course, there is the question of what having insulin in your refrigerator does to your likelihood of dying from diabetes complications.

As someone said, correlation is always causation if your agenda calls for it.

Paul said...

I like the correlation equals causation line.

Like it is because.

I would hazard if you are a frequent flier with the Po Po your chances of an untimely death increase exponentially.

Anonymous said...

From the linked article:

"... none of the crimes were random and the victims most likely knew their assailants."

Probably knew them from the mugshots.


alex. said...

There is a subset of our population that spends a lot of time interacting with the criminal justice system, either as defendant, witness, or victim.

And their role changes from incident to incident: today's victim of a stabbing was recently released from prison for shooting someone; the chick who helped convict the dude who killed her friend is subsequently prosecuted for drugs, violates her probation, and is sent to the big-house herself, etc., etc., etc.

Most of the homicide victims I see have been criminal defendants. If you hang out with thugs, dopers, hooligans, and thieves you have a better than average chance of ending up with somebody in a government office reading your autopsy report.

Anonymous said...

From the linked article:

“[My niece] was a good person. We always joked around, wrestled. What you guys see here, this is not really her. She’s just in bad times, rough times.”

She was 21. What percent of her adult life consisted of these self induced "bad times"? Where was her family when she was getting involved with these losers?

"You are known by the company you keep.": She's hanging with 2 men more than twice her age and a girl with the death-by-meth pallor and a homemade tattoo on the side of her neck....... bad plan, ya think? I'd never have to deal with that situation for long from the outside a jail, were that my daughter ....

"It is better to be alone than in bad company."-Geo. Washington

2 centuries on, and the man is still right as rain .....

-jimbob86

Ed said...

I guarantee you that all those now living in Indianapolis will be dead mostly from natural causes within 140 years.

staghounds said...

Les and Rickn80r,I'm a prosecutor in Juvenile Court in a 30+ annual homicide jurisdiction.

The secret records would raise the stat from 80% to 90%.

Almost the only homicide victims without a criminal record are clerks/delivery people killed in robberies, domestic violence victims, little children killed by parents or their partners, and people who happened to be where a drunk put his car.

mariner said...

Sounds almost like an anti-crime wave.