Chairman Stewart wants to claim crime statistics have decreased since the passage of the resolution. Maybe he should check the numbers. In fact, what we had was a decreasing crime rate during the time period where Stewart claims an influx of illegals. And well now… 2008 rates show increased burglary, auto theft, larceny etc… Maybe he should rethink his line of argument?
Personally, it seems related more to the economy than anyone’s immigration status. Remember, murders and rapes supposedly are non-trendable anyways so we should not make any assumptions based on those numbers.
The yellow highlighted row is mine. It’s a year-to-date calculation, whereby we can compare 2007 numbers to 2008 running totals.
Statistics come from the Prince William County Police Department’s website. As of today, there are no reports available for fourth quarter of 2008.
Note: Based on the explanation given to me by Officer Chinn of the PWC, negative numbers in the Rape statisitics are used to offset a previously reported case. I presume an example would be someone who recants their account.
Alanna, they covered the Limbaugh Republican Convention on Hardball, and the reporter said that the one thing all the leaders and the followers agreed upon was that the immigration “Alamo” had hurt the Republican party.
I know you are a Republican. I am not, but I am just as sad as anyone that they chose to do this to their own country, their own party, and to our county. I don’t blame local Republicans because in 2007 they were believing in whatever issue they were told to believe in. I blame Corey Stewart, Greg Letiecq, and John Stirrup, who thought they would go far in the Republican party if they were the first ones to jump on the new big issue for them. Turned out to be the new big losing issue for them.
I don’t remember the name of the convention, I call it Limbaugh because his ideas seemed to dominate, and the other two heavyweights, Gov. Jindall and Gov. Palin, were not there.
It’s morning and time to comment while I watch the snow. You’re correct Shelly, this nation will indeed be better off when the Republicans drop the fight to prevent illegal border crossings. This nation will once again be a stellar example for the world as we allow additional millions of uneducated and unskilled laborers to flood into our land. Soon life will be so much less cumbersome as we rid ourselves of pesky laws like having to have a drivers license simply to operate a vehicle. How silly. Plus everyone knows that if we simply adopt Spanish as the language of the land, then we won’t be unfairly burdening these new arrivals. We wouldn’t want a national lawsuit now would we. The government is broke as it is, and soon so will we, as we pay for medical, food, and subsidized housing for the new masses. However, the enhanced drug commerce with Mexico alone could provide for generations of financial security, and as an added benefit the age of consent will be lowered to 14. All new homes will be mandated to be constructed with at least 3 bedrooms and at least a 10 car garage so as to maintain the refined look of the new burgeoning neighborhoods. Just think of all the new jobs that will be created at the newly built food stamp printing plants, and all those who will distribute the stamps door to door. Oh, and don’t forget about those taxes, we don’t need no stinking taxes!
I’m sorry, I got carried away. I was just trying to imagine what the future will be like under the new social programs of the Obama administration. It’s about time those successful people in this country turn over their fortunes to the masses. After all, it’s not like they worked for it or anything. Just ask any doctor, right?
Ok, now if that doesn’t make Shelly bust a vein, then nothing will. A little humor never hurt anyone!
Tune in next week as we discuss the release of all prison inmates who felt their civil rights had been denied, and the added problem of what to do with all the empty prisons!
That was pretty clever, SA.
I maintain we must know who is in out country. It is a matter of national security.
How was the snow watch? Looks sort of neat from Manassas. Tiny flakes here.
The snow is coming down pretty heavily. I decided NOT to go to work today. That way I can stay here and entertain everyone if nothing else.
Great! Keep it rolling, SA. I heard from a friend that Fairfax Parkway was absolutely terrible this morning. Sounds like you made a good choice.
I want to go out and go road 4 wheeling. Last time I did that on a snowy day I saw a beautiful red fox.
Did you get those prison stats? I don’t know how accurate they were.
Roads are horrible out. Don’t know what happened with VDOT today, but the major roads have been clogged with snow since 5 AM and the side roads are even worse.
Glad to have your entertainment SA! Also glad you decided to play it safe today 🙂
Very interesting stats M-H. Thanks for finding them!
Thanks for the road update Lucky. Snow and kids are the most entertaining combination! We are getting our snow gear on to start our sledding extravaganza.
I’m almost afraid to jump into this discussion 🙂 Time to thaw after throwing snowballs for the past two hours.
If you go onto the police department’s website, there is the following qualifier:
“Note: Caution should be used in interpreting short-term crime numbers. Annual and multiyear
crime trend data have more value when trying to determine the meaning of
fluctuations in crime numbers.”
People on all sides of this issue should take heed of this when trying to use statistics to prove one thing or another. This is a very small window in time.
Hope everyone is enjoying the snow. I’m loving it.
YankeeForever,
Welcome, and thanks for joining in the conversation. I will be the first to tell you that I am no expert on this subject matter. I continue to look at these numbers because of the Chairman’s assertions of a correlation between them and the resolution. I don’t see any evidence of one. One thing is for sure, the crime statistics had been on a downward trend during the previous 4 years prior to the passage of the resolution. This simple fact is verifiable through the annual police report and obviously spans the timeperiod when the Chairman claims an ‘influx of illegals.’ If I am to believe his supposition that crime rates would decrease after ‘illegals’ leave then using his logic we should have seen crime rates increasing when the arrived. This has not been demonstrated by the numbers and is reason enough to question his position.
Welcome, YankeeForever. I agree that one needs to be careful when trying to draw any short term conclusions. What I am objecting to is precisely that: Corey Stewart is going around any time there is a mike in front of him saying that because of the resolution, crime in PWC was reduced by 20%. I see no indication of that nor does anyone else. Our county was already in a downward trend as far as crime goes although not 20% in one year.
We just want Corey to be honest and to stop trying to gain political advantage over data that doesn’t really exist, regardless of how you cook the books.
Interesting. I also notice that some of these crimes seem to spike as the weather gets warmer, and then drop off a bit in the fall. I wonder what he would attribute that phenomenon to?
Any social movement that relies on the antipathy of a majority toward a minority, and the illusion that the minority is to blame for the ills of society at large, is destined to rob all citizens, not only of truth, but also justice and prosperity.
And thus, another tragic revelation for Chairman Stewart. Why, at this point, would he try to continue the lie? Chairman Stewart has been robbed of his honesty, minorities have been robbed of justice, and all of us robbed of prosperity.
Alamo, I’m glad you are proud of your “response.” But I got a little bored two sentences in because I’ve seen that tactic soooooo many times before. When you can’t handle the issue posed to you, you create another one you can handle. Typical.
Look. No one in government is arguing against border security. If arguing FOR border security is the only argument you think you can win, I feel sorry for you.
Anyway, back to the issue you avoided discussing:
In 2007 and early 2008, a small contingent of extremist Republicans ran political campaigns founded on a wave of anti-immigration hysteria. The problem is, it backfired BIG TIME. Because while a vocal minority was suffering from hysteria, most of America is too American to be frightened so easily. You lost. And you’ll lose again if you try again.
So the question is, do you change your strategy? The rank and file of the Republican party was there at CPAC this past weekend, and all said yes, we must and we will change our ways. But not you, Alamo. You are too proud for changing political strategies. You just change the subject.
I guess you’re not feeling so proud of yourself now.
I don’t know that SA has announced his political alliances. I think he is just expressing his opinion, which of course is his right to do. SA is always polite and rarely engages in personal attack. That is why I listen to him, even if I do not agree. He is not the typical Velvet kinda guy.
He is smarter than the typical Velvet kind of guy. I’ll give you that. Why don’t you ask him his partisan leanings if you’re confused about it. I’m not. Anyway, if he can’t even out talk me on the immigration issue, I think it must be time for him to come up with another issue.
@ShellyB
He’ll tell me if he wants me to know. I don’t belong to a party either. On the other hand, I believe that SA and Slowpoke are both welcome additions here. They provide another perspective in a polite way. They isn’t screaming insults or calling us names like some of the velvets do.
Speaking of which, I see Rick B has gone off to be his alter-egos for a while. Haven’t seen him around these parts recently.
Actually, I don’t think that most people who are regulars on this blog are die hard party members.
My annoyance with Second Alamo is not that he is a Republican. It’s just that he’s an extremist Republican. The kind that try to hijack the party for the purposes of culture war, such as the immigration fight.
Look at this thing with the all the Republican leaders bending over for Rush Limbaugh and the rest of America saying, “What? Is this really what the Republicans have become?” Why is it that the loudest and most hateful get all the attention?
Sure, it’s good for the blog that people like this write what the write. But it’s not good for America. If the Republicans can’t stand up to Rush Limbaugh, how will they stand up to Osama bin Laden? If they can’t stand up to Rush Limbaugh, how will they stand up to the anti-immigrant lobby when the time comes?
Meanwhile, the American people are like children with two parents always fighting because one of them won’t give up the booze.