SCHENECTADY — Schenectady officials are disputing a website’s ranking of Schenectady as one of the most dangerous small cities in America, saying the
calculations are flawed and the numbers are “just factually incorrect.”

The source of the data itself, the FBI and its 2012 uniform crime report, cautions against using the numbers to rank jurisdictions between each other,
noting many factors impact crime and comparisons can be incomplete.

The rankings come from a blog post on the real estate site Movoto.com. The site wrote that it used the FBI’s 2012 uniform crime report and seven types of reported crimes to rank all U.S. cities with a population between 50,000 and 75,000.

The site ranked Schenectady at No. 11.

Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy disputed the ranking Wednesday.

“I consider it unfortunate,” he said. “It’s just an incorrect analysis.”

He questioned the site’s method of calculating each city’s crime per 100,000 residents. The author wrote that was done to calculate cities on an even
playing field.

Deeper than that, McCarthy said crime is down in Schenectady, and it has been going down. Helping it decrease has been innovative policing methods that city police have been sharing with other departments.

According to state numbers, violent crimes in Schenectady have been on a steady downward trend since 2010, when there were 679. In 2012, there were 625 and in 2013, there were 601.

In 2012, there were 2,829 property crimes reported in Schenectady, the lowest number since at least 2004. The number for 2013 was even lower than that, 2,783.

Helping drive those numbers down in recent years has been data-driven policing, McCarthy said. The police track traffic accidents, burglaries and other
crimes and send extra officers to hot spots. Police officials get requests from other departments to teach them to use those methods, he said.

Even the underlying crime report upon which the blog’s rankings are based cautions against such rankings on its home page.

The FBI website notes that attempts to rank cities using the data provided “are merely a quick choice made by the data user.”

Comparing jurisdiction to jurisdiction requires more variables, among them ones that are hard to measure or don’t even apply to all cities, the website notes.

Rankings based on the FBI data “provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, region, or other
jurisdiction,” the FBI site reads. “Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions
adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents.”

the FBI site reads. “Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions
adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents[b][/b].

If ignorance was bliss, the nayboobs would be in the highest state of euphoria.

Quoted Text

Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions
adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents

Thanks DVOR explains why we were not in the top ten, whew

Schenectady is a crime ridden City! McThug is trying very hard to downplay the numbers but the website got it right! McThug knows the crime rate in Schenectady will make him lose the Mayoral post in 2015. McThug rather  spend all the time and resource to arrest absentee landlords and let the drug dealers roam freely in our streets. McThug needs to mandate police to walk and beat the streets start building community relationships with residents to fight the crime drugs, prostitues, etc. Stop buying sports cars for the Police and give them walking boots to walk the neighboorhoods! The presence of Police walking the streets alone will scare off the criminals!

Well actually, Schenectady city then is probably in the top ten.

Sites like these usually do things based on zip codes.  I think thee was discussion some time ago on these boards about the average sale prices from one of those sites.  The sites would use the zip codes and any one on these boards with intelligence knows that to use sale prices from 12309 zip code inflates sale prices for the city because it includes the homes in Nisky that appreciate in value because they are not in the city.  And the 12303 zip code will include sales occurring in Rotterdam but more so will include Guilderland, which again, is not the city of Schenectady thus sale prices are on the rise, and in fact Guilderland is in Albany county.  And 12306 crosses over as well--both city and Rotterdam town.  I think, but am not absolutely certain, that the 12302 zip code does not include any of the city of Schenectady.

So, if the crimes info included in that moveto report were from FBI but those who set parameters did it based on zip code, then the rate would be indicated over a wider area and that would include the fewer crimes outside of the city of Schenectady.  That then would cause an under-reporting of the crime rate.  It's unknown exactly whether it was done based on zip code or on actual city boundaries.  If they take out Nisky, Rottrerdam, and Guilderland out of the mix, then we all know that the crime rate would be higher and thus would indeed put the city in the top ten.

If McC doesn't like the report, how about he put a report in the local news media and provide a link to the FBI website as evidence that moveto is wrong.

If DV claims the rate is wrong, then DV should also provide a link on these boards direct to the FBI website page that reports the crimes.  How 'bout it, DV?????   TOTAL SILENCE  Yes, I remember a couple years ago challenging him to provide EVIDENCe, to provide a link to the FBI stats that claimed crime in the city of Schenectady was going down.  Guess what, DV has NEVER responded, he has NEVER provided such a link, not one teeny weeny shred of EVIDENCE to support what he says!!  As always, more lies and fairy tales from the fingers of DV.

Just like on the Metrograft audit, whenever there is a bad news report the DEM morons attack the messenger. After 40 years of running the City into the dirt the DEM State Comptroller did not have
the facts right, the FBI does not have the facts right. Here's the facts. McCheese campaigned as a "law enforcement expert" which should have upset all real policemen. Instead they kept quiet and gave him the CONS endorsement. There are only DEMS to blame. Schenectady after 40 years of DEM control is a dangerous, corrupt, undriveable cesspool. The only hope is a State Control Board takeover and
Hull Alliance/REP sweep next November. And it maybe 4 years too late.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

the FBI site reads. “Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions
adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents[b][/b].

If ignorance was bliss, the nayboobs would be in the highest state of euphoria.

as does ALL actuarial science...including health insurance/war/sanctions/casinos etc etc etc.........

If ignorance was bliss, the nayboobs would be in the highest state of euphoria.

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

If ignorance was bliss, the nayboobs would be in the highest state of euphoria.

when all else fails "spam"

I see that the metrics for the second half of 2013 are still not updated on the City website.  All McCarthy needs to do is update the numbers to back up his words.  I have a feeling the numbers are not good and wont be updated for a long time......

http://www.cityofschenectady.com/Metrics/SPD%20METRICS.htm

Quoted from sanfordy2

when all else fails "spam"

Yep, in the middle of the night, in between going on all those "adult" sites while the nannies are sleeping




Or maybe being up a that hour is just the insomnia resulting from all those financially struggling people he does outreach to when they tell him how difficult life is under the crushing burden of city dem taxes.

Now I know why the Democratic Party loves the Donkey symbol. A bunch of Jackasses! LOL