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You know the saying, it goes something like this: "statistics speak for themselves." So when LA Weekly's Patrick Range McDonald got sick of hearing the Mayor and LAPD Chief William Bratton claim crime levels were down to 1956 levels year after year, he decided to do his own statistics gathering finding that no, Los Angeles is really not living in the 50s still. Here's some of what we learned:
Despite all this, Bratton does not think much of statisticians and criminologists. For man who is known for great quotes, here's another one: “It’s common practice with statistics to go back and match it against the lowest point in time,” said Bratton during a 45-minute interview with L.A. Weekly. “The public gets it, the criminologists don’t. Once again, who in hell cares? Nobody’s listening to them anyway. I’m a practitioner. I get the job done. They can write from now to Doomsday; none of them are getting anything done. Most of them don’t even get out of their offices to see what the real world looks like. I live in the real world.”
