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Last December NYT: Is Shoplifting Really Surging? https://archive.ph/lJxHA

> Conservative media has promoted these videos as evidence of disorder in liberal cities and under President Biden.

Numerous other media emissions similarly re-assured us that crime is down! There's no organized theft rings! and so on.

It's so hard to keep up with History today.

Crime can be down and there also can be organized theft rings. Do you see why?

The most obvious reason why is that by crime you mean reported crime, and by reported crime you mean reported crime reported to the FBI.

(E.G., https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/08/15/see-if-police-...)

There seems to be an essential confusion between police refusing to investigate low-level theft without bodily harm (non-felony shoplifting, snatch-and-run, hit-and-run without injury) and the resulting (and inaccurate) lower crime rates. While not necessarily true of more serious (high-value or violent crimes) it is entirely possible for actual minor crime rates to rise while reported crime rates decrease.

Sure, but the parent I responded to seems to be trying to make an "aha!" here based on the fact that there are in fact crime rings, that crime is not actually down, which is a completely fallacious conclusion.

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