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2015: The Great Crime Wave That Wasn’t

by HassanE54kqinqhe Posted on December 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Was there a huge crime wave in 2015? There are two main sources for crime rates in the United States. The FBI produces the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), which is based on reporting from police agencies. The Bureau of Justice Statistics produces the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which conducts surveys of ordinary Americans and asks if they’ve been a crime victim in the past year. Rick Nevin breaks down the numbers:

The 2015 NCVS property crime rate (household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and other theft) was down 6.3% from 2014…2015 UCR burglary rate…down 8.5%…UCR larceny-theft rate…down 2.5%…UCR property crime rate…down 3.4% from 2014….roughly consistent with the NCVS data showing the property crime rate falling 6.3% in 2015 to a record low.

The UCR violent crime rate (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) should be roughly consistent with the NCVS serious violent crime rate (sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault),1but the UCR violent crime rate increased 3.0% in 2015 as the NCVS serious violent crime rate fell 11.7%….

OK, hold on. Everyone agrees that property crime is down, but the FBI says the reported violent crime rate increased 3 percent while the NCVS survey data says it decreased 11.7 percent? What’s going on? The biggest components of the violent crime index are robbery and aggravated assault. Both the UCR and the NCVS agree closely about the robbery rate, so that means there must be some kind of discrepancy in the aggravated assault rate:

The 2015 UCR aggravated assault rate was up 3.8% from 2014….NCVS total aggravated assaults were down 25.2% in 2015, and NCVS aggravated assaults reported to police were down 20.7%.

Yikes! Long story short, Nevin shows that this divergence between UCR and NCVS has been increasing for the past decade. The culprit, apparently, is exactly the opposite of the frequent allegation that police departments understate serious crime in order to make themselves look better. “The fact that NCVS victims are reporting aggravated assaults far below UCR recorded aggravated assaults suggests that police have become far more expansive than crime victims are when it comes to defining aggravated assault, perhaps to protect against allegations that the police undercount serious violent crime.”

Most likely, then, there’s a longstanding issue of how aggravated assault is reported and categorized. Basically, police departments underreported it in the past and are now overreporting it. Aggravated assault probably decreased or held steady in 2015, which means the overall rate of violent crime was also either down or steady.

There was an increase in the murder rate last year, from 4.44 in 2014 to 4.88 in 2015 (per 100,000). This is a significant jump, and it was apparently fueled by an especially large jump in about a dozen big cities. This is cause for concern, especially since the murder rate usually correlates roughly with the overall violent crime rate. The divergence last year is unusual, and we don’t yet know what explains it. It might just be a random spike, or it could suggest something worse.

But while murder gets the headlines, it’s only one small component of the overall crime rate. Overall property crime was down last year and overall violent crime was probably down too. These are, by far, the crimes that actually affect most people. With the exception of a few pockets of increased homicide, America continues to get safer and safer.

1The NCVS numbers don’t include homicide because you obviously can’t survey murder victims. However, homicide is a tiny part of the overall violent crime rate, so that doesn’t account for the difference between UCR and NCVS figures.

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2015: The Great Crime Wave That Wasn’t

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3 Ethical Fashion Companies That Care About the World

by AnnSumner13 Posted on October 25, 2016

Thirtyyears ago, so called “ethical fashion” was essentially non-existent. The manufacturing boom brought with it all sorts of high profile disasters, from child slave labor to unethical sourcing of materials, and big name brands were disproportionately more concerned with making a buck than creating socially and environmentally-responsible items.

Now, more and more traditional mega brands are recognizing the importance of sustainable fashion. And alongside them, dozens of stylish, ethical brands are finding their place in the sun.

What is ethical fashion?

Ethical fashion has come a long way since its dull, scratchy, eco-beginnings. Today, many sustainable brands lead the chargewhen it comes to creating classy, beautiful garmentsthat also honor what it means to be a responsible creator of goods.

The Ethical Fashion Forum saysit this way:

“Ethical fashion represents an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacturing of clothing which maximizes the benefits to people and communities, while minimizing impact on the environment.”

But what does that mean exactly?

Ethical fashion brands are commonly judged on whether or not the brand cares aboutthe following:

Countering fast, cheap fashion and damaging patterns of fashion consumption
Defending fair wages, working conditions and workers’ rights
Supporting sustainable livelihoods
Addressing toxic pesticide and chemical use
Using and/or developing eco-friendly fabrics and components
Minimizing water use
Recycling and addressing energy efficiency and waste
Developing or promoting sustainability standards for fashion
Resources, training and/or awareness raising initiatives
Animal rights

Another way to look at it is through the lens of the “Triple Bottom Line.” This means thatrather than examining a business purely from a profit-perspectivethat the brand’s attention to social and environmental aspects is also considered.

With those criteria in mind, here are the five newcomers to the ethical fashion scene! You may want to consider adding these companies to your Christmas gift short-list.

The Simple Kind

The Simple Kind Website

The Simple Kind is an ethical fashion company that celebrates women and childrenby making”whimsical and timeless dresses that reflect the hearts of the little girls who wear them.” Every item isdesigned in-house in Denver, Colorado, then carefully madeby groups that empower women all over the world.

The company releases just a few specially constructed pieces at a time with the intent to see their high-quality garments last for generations to come. All materials are intentionally and thoughtfully sourced in ethical and environmentally-friendly ways.

You can find out more about the company and its originshere.

UNIFORM

UNIFORM Website

UNIFORM, a new clothing line featuring hip, minimalist clothing, is taking sustainability to the next level. The company was founded by Chid Liberty, a Liberian-American who pioneered Africa’s first Fair Trade Certified apparel manufacturer, Liberty & Justice, and got its start via a Kickstarter campaign.

UNIFORM is on a mission to give back to its West African community by investing in local manufacturing and donating school uniforms to children who otherwise could not attend school.

Help them get to their goal of 50,000 uniforms donated here!

Sseko Designs

Sseko Designs Website

Sseko Designsis an ethical fashion brand that “hires high potential women in Uganda to make sandals, to enable them to earn money through dignified employment that will go directly towards their college educations.” So far, Sseko has sent more than 70 women to university.

Sseko Designs blends a financially self-sustaining business model with a cause: sending young women to school in Uganda and other regions of East Africa. Peruse their website to discover beautiful goodies, from footwear to leather bags and other accessories.
Have you ever shopped ethical brands? Which are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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3 Ethical Fashion Companies That Care About the World

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Here’s the Data That Shows Cops Kill Black People at a Higher Rate Than White People

by DewayneEdmonson Posted on September 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Since a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, one month ago, reporters and researchers have scrambled to find detailed data on how often cops wound or kill civilians. What they’ve uncovered has been frustratingly incomplete: Perhaps not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies don’t keep very good stats on incidents that turn deadly. In short, it’s a mystery exactly how many Americans are shot by the police every year.

However, as I and others have reported, there is some national data out there. It’s not complete, but it provides a general idea of how many people die at the hands of the police—and the significant racial disparity among them:

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting program records that 410 people were killed in justifiable homicides by police in 2012. While the FBI collects information on the victims’ race, it does not publish the overall racial breakdown.

• The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that between 2003 and 2009 there were more than 2,900 arrest-related deaths involving law enforcement. Averaged over seven years, that’s about 420 deaths a year. While BJS does not provide the annual number of arrest-related deaths by race or ethnicity, a rough calculation based on its data shows that black people were about four times as likely to die in custody or while being arrested than whites.

Note: Most arrest-related deaths by homicide are by law enforcement, not private citizens. Rate calculated by dividing deaths by the average Census population for each race in 2003-09. “Other” includes American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Native Hawaiians, other Pacific Islander, and persons of two or more races.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System offers another view into officers’ use of deadly force. In 2011, the CDC counted 460 people who died by “legal intervention” involving a firearm discharge. In theory, this includes any death caused by a law enforcement or state agent (it does not include legal executions).

The CDC’s cause-of-death data, based on death certificates collected at the state level, also reveals a profound racial disparity among the victims of police shootings. Between 1968 and 2011, black people were between two to eight times more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than whites. Annually, over those 40 years, a black person was on average 4.2 times as likely to get shot and killed by a cop than a white person. The disparity dropped to 2 to 1 between 2003 and 2009, lower than the 4-to-1 disparity shown in the BJS data over those same years. The CDC’s database of emergency room records also shows similar racial disparities among those injured by police.

However, these numbers provide an extremely limited view of the lethal use of force by law enforcement. For reasons that have been outlined by USA Today, Vox, FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and others, the FBI data is pretty unreliable and represents a conservative estimate. Some 18,000 agencies contribute to the FBI’s broader crime reporting program, but only about 750 reported their justifiable homicide figures in 2012. New York state, for example, does not report justifiable homicides to the FBI, according to bureau spokesperson Stephen G. Fischer, Jr.

It’s also not clear that Brown’s death—the circumstances of which remain in dispute—would show up in the FBI’s data in the first place. (Ferguson reported two homicides to the 2012 Uniform Crime Report, but neither were justifiable homicides, according to Fischer.) The FBI’s justifiable homicide data only counts “felons,” but its definition of a felon differs from the common legal understanding of a felon as someone who has been convicted of a felony. “A felon in this case is someone who is committing a felony criminal offense at the time of the justifiable homicide,” according to a statement provided by Uniform Crime Reporting staff. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook describes the following scenario to illustrate what constitutes the justifiable killing of a criminal caught in the act:

A police officer answered a bank alarm and surprised the robber coming out of the bank. The robber saw the responding officer and fired at him. The officer returned fire, killing the robber. The officer was charged in a court of record as a matter of routine in such cases.

And since the classification of felonies—usually serious criminal offenses such as murder and assault—may vary by jurisdiction, UCR staff states, there is no standard definition of the word.

This leaves much room for interpretation. Was Michael Brown committing a felony at the time Officer Darren Wilson shot him? Local authorities in Ferguson have claimed that Brown was a robbery suspect and that he assaulted Wilson prior to the shooting. Whether Brown’s case might be classified as a justifiable homicide hinges on the details of what happened in the moments before his death and whether local investigations determine that Wilson was justified to shoot. The FBI’s records ultimately rely on police departments’ word and the assumption that the victim was a criminal.

BJS, meanwhile, collects its data from state-level coordinators that identify arrest-related deaths in part by surveying law enforcement agencies. But the majority of these coordinators do not contact each law enforcement agency in their states, so BJS has no way of telling how many deaths have gone unidentified, according to spokesperson Kara McCarthy. BJS collects some details about each reported death, such as how the victims died, whether they were armed, whether they were intoxicated or displayed signs of mental illness, and whether charges had been filed against them at the time of death. It does not collect information about whether the victims had any prior convictions.

Some of the gaps in the FBI and BJS data can be filled in by the CDC data, but there are limitations here, too. The CDC data does not evaluate whether these killings were justified or not. The agency categorizes fatalities by International Classification of Diseases codes, which are used by coroners and medical examiners to record the medical cause, not the legal justification, of death. And death certificates aren’t immune to reporting problems, explains Robert Anderson, chief of the CDC’s Mortality Statistics Branch. This data is still “at the mercy of the medical examiner and coroner,” who often write death certificates and may not include details about officer involvement. Anderson says those details are necessary in order for the CDC to categorize a death as a legal intervention.

Better data, and the will to collect it, is necessary to get the full picture of how many criminals and law-abiding citizens are killed by police every year. Until then Michael Brown—and others like him—may never even become a statistic.

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Here’s the Data That Shows Cops Kill Black People at a Higher Rate Than White People

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