At the LCDC meeting last night. Ron Speakman came to seek our endorsement for Sheriff. The LCDC declined to endorse anyone for that office this year, as there is no Democrat running.
One assertion that Mr. Speakman made, and is no doubt a core part of his campaign pitch, is that violent crime has increased 46% from 2006 to 2009 as reported by the FBI. This is patently and categorically false. In truth, all crime, including violent crime, has been falling for a decade or more.
Perhaps Mr. Speakman was specifically referring to Virginia, or Northern Virginia. In that case, his statement remains categorically false.
The bottom line is that Mr. Speakman’s campaign for Sheriff is based on stirring up fear and using bald-faced lies to do it. It’s worthwhile for us, as Democrats, to correct such assertions with facts and fear with reason whenever the opportunity presents itself. Reality, after all, has a liberal bias.
I’m glad everyone found my response so helpful but I need to make another point. According to the population estimates on the Loudoun County website there is still a increase in violent crime from 2006 to 2009 even when you adjust for population growth. While Loudoun County’s population has doubled in recent years it only increasd 10% during the time in question. Technically that only softens Speakmans’s claim to around a 30% increase. All that said, Speakman is still being misleading because the current trend in 2010 is a significant decrease in crime with or without population allowances. Considering the economic troubles of the last few years that is quite an accomplishment.
Sadly I heard him repeat this scare-tactic on the radio yesterday during my evening commute. I guess he assumes that if he repeats it enough a few people might believe it.
Oh my yes. And what a short step it is to saying “She put herself out as someone who would make up a story of rape.” Sheriff, anyone?
…and then there’s THIS:
So he is citing total crime stats and not per capita stats which actually went down? I would call that dishonest.
Travis, it doesn’t matter. I have no idea why Speakman is getting any play or consideration for Sheriff at all. The guy is a sociopath. He should be spending his money on psychotherapy rather than a doomed political race. At this point the only thing that has a chance of beginning a repair of his reputation is to withdraw his name from the ballot.
Travis, thank you for the excellent analysis!
It is all about framing. It would be equally true to say that absolute safety increased dramatically from 2006 to 2009, as there were thousands more people in Loudoun who did not have a crime committed against them than in previous years.
Travis’s comment went into moderation because of the multiple links. I approved it.
Counts of violent crime rising by 40% in years when our population rose faster than that is actually a decrease in the crime rate.
My curiosity was peaked by this article. I honestly had no idea if Speakman was correct in his claim or not and while Paradox13 does a great job in highlighting overall decreases in crime rates I did not see a refutal of Speakman’s specific claim of a 46% increase in violent crime from 2006 to 2009.
First, I had to know if Speakman’s claim was being represented fairly in this article. I had hoped to see a citation from Paradox13 that I could use to independantly verify Speakman’s claim was as stated. Not seeing one I perused Speakman’s campaign webite and found multiple repeats of it there. Satisfied, I now needed to know if Speakman’s specific claim was valid and so I hoped to see a citation from Speakman himself. A generic reference to FBI data was all I had to go on.
Fearing the worst that I would get lost in sea of raw data I was actually pleased to find the FBI database easy to navigate. I found my answer there and Speakman is right, technically.
I can’t show you my graphs and spreadsheets I spent the last few hours mulling over but I can tell you what I found and show you how to confirm the results. Speakman is refering specifically to the counts of violent crime in Loudoun County in the years of 2006 and 2009 which are 172 and 251 respectively. This does come out to a 46% increase.
Seeing this I noticed how odd it seemed that Speakman would hang on the years he gave. I couldn’t think of what was so special about 2006 and 2009. I wondered what else the FBI had to say about Loudoun County. Speakman clearly fails to mention what the counts of violent crime are in the years around 2006 and 2009. Below I list those numbers and my sources.
Year – Count of Violent Crime – Source
2005 – 171 – http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_10_va.html
2006 – 172 – http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_10_va.html
2007 – 167 – http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_10_va.html
2008 – 269 – http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_10_va.html
2009 – 251 – http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_10_va.html
2010 – 187 – http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/table-10/10tbl10va.xls
It should be noted that the FBI has something to say about all this as well.
“Each year when Crime in the United States is published, many entities—news media, tourism agencies, and other groups with an interest in crime in our Nation—use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties. These rankings, however, are merely a quick choice made by the data user; they provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, region, or other jurisdiction. Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents.” http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/caution-against-ranking
If Speakman wants to state a 46% increase in violent crime from 2006 to 2009 is reason enough for him to become sheriff then I will state that a 30% decrease in violent crime from 2008 to 2010 is reason enough for him not to be. Both of our claims are as equally factual and misleading.
Speakman lying? Noooo.
Why didn’t the LCDC endorse Chapman?
Sorry I missed that show. How could he have imagined, after the response to even the rumor of this last month, that he had a chance of an LCDC endorsement? He really sounds like an odd one, possibly even worse than Dickerson.
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