Aug. 2, 2004
The price of fear: Accuracy
The city government recently sponsored a poll to measure attitudes and opinions of citizens before the city carves out the next two-year budget. The results are not surprising. Most of us think public safety is a No. 1 priority, for example. (You can see a report about the survey from a link below) But at least one of the statistics was quite surprising.
Many of the questions were designed to ask people how they think and feel about certain things. But a couple of questions were designed to measure knowledge – to see what people know about the city.
In a question about public safety, 60 percent of residents said that the crime rate in Lakewood is at the same level, or at a higher level, than it was before cityhood in 1996.
That's flat wrong. As measured by raw statistics, the crime rate is actually down about 25 percent since cityhood. The violent crime rate is down 40 percent.
So 60 percent – three out of five of our neighbors - are holding opinions and making decisions about the city based on error.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not being critical of people who are wrong about something. I am not being critical of people who do not know the right answer to something. I am wrong about a lot of things too. If you asked me to name our 34th president or point out the country of Belarus on a blank globe, I would just stare at you and try to change the subject.
What's fascinating is the nature of this particular error. Let's prioritize what the city's most ardent supporters say or assume in conversation or writing. The most common thing they would say, especially if speaking to someone who did not know, is that our city is called Lakewood. The second most common thing they would say is that our crime rate is down. An enormous amount of effort and ink has gone into telling citizens that public safety is a crown jewel of cityhood. The city government may or may not have done a lot of things, but it has made you safer. The city has not been hesitant to tell you this. The statistics have been in the newspapers, repeatedly. The statistics are widely quoted in the voter’s pamphlet (by incumbents, obviously) and in the city’s quarterly newsletter, Connections, that is mailed to every home.
In fact, people in and around City Hall have done nearly everything except tattoo the statistics on their foreheads and print the message on every section of every roll of toilet paper.
So why are so many people so wrong? My suspicion is that what works against correct information is the nature of this statistic. It only takes one burglary in your neighborhood to make crime suddenly much more urgent. The reason many of us support a strong police department is that we’d prefer your neighbor not have to undergo that crime to get everyone’s attention.
But I think the chief problem is that the crime statistic runs headlong into headlines. The statistic runs into our inner fears. TV and radio thrive on crime, and they and the papers have to tell you where the crime takes place. "A Lakewood crime ... etc..." This is both good and bad. On the one hand, it’s important people know crimes take place in their neighborhood so that they support programs for a strong police department and programs that work with youth to avoid crime. The coming discussions about a police station for Lakewood will depend on people understanding the importance of police protection in this town.
But the bad news is that the steady diet of crime eats away at confidence. You can hear, over and over, that crime in Lakewood is down. But then you then read or hear, over and over, that crime takes place in Lakewood. My co-workers in Seattle sometimes tell me they think I live in a war zone, based solely on the particular crime du jour of the Puget Sound media or what they saw on 'Cops.'
Then you get into the issue of whether people have a compulsion for bad news. Hey, I saw the statistics when I worked at the Lakewood Journal. Sure, everyone tells you that they like positive news. But papers sell better when there is a big crime story on the cover.
On one level, it's not healthy. You may remember a few years back that a certain Dr. Andrew Weill was all over public television. He’s the guy who looks like Santa Claus if Santa had hung out at Grateful Dead concerts. He wrote books and made TV programs about how to promote health: exercise, vitamins, etc… He wrote and talked about how to incorporate many different traditions of healing: not just the medicine that doctors learn at U.S. medical schools, but traditions from alternative medicine and the Far East.
One of Weill’s suggestions was that people go on a periodic ‘news diet.’ He said that the frenetic pace of today’s news, with its emphasis on melodrama, death and dismemberment, was not compatible with good health. At the time, I was a reporter, and thought this guy insane. Not read the paper, for your mental health? And indeed, democracy would fall apart if people stopped reading papers and listening to the news.
But if you think about it, we pay a high price for being informed. In some ways, we know less. We worry about a crime rate that is not there. We fear for our safety greater than we should. If these fears damage our understanding of what is really going on, what do these fears do to the rest of our mind and our body?
It would be unrealistic to ask people to give up their fears – we shouldn't stop paying for police and we shouldn't stop locking our doors. But when you hear about the latest 'Lakewood crime,' I hope you know and can remind yourself sometimes that the odds are that you and yours are going to be just fine. One of the reasons for cityhood in 1996 was a need for more effective police protection. That’s what you got. The city hired more police and began many community- and neighborhood-centered programs. The many Tuesday celebrations of National Night Out are just one manifestation of that spirit. And thanks to an enormous amount of work by officers, other community activists and volunteers, Lakewood is a safer place than it was before.
Oh, by the way – the crime rate is down.
Click here for more information about the entire survey