I'll be voting Conservative...

[Michael Hardner]

Investigate yes...but again, no broad conclusions as were made above.

Yes, I used that term on purpose. All we can say is that there doesn't appear to be an impact from the 3% Somali population in Minneapolis on the crime rates there. There *could* be some countervailing factor, specific to Minneapolis, that's hiding the data but it hasn't been identified.

If there were a difference then, yes, we could test other hypothesis.

More remarkable to me was any attempt to create and associate false crime rate assertions for American immigrants to demonstrate what would/could happen in Canada should more immigrants/refugees be landed.

News flash: the two countries are largely the same. This is why your "Canada vs. US" / "City Mouse vs Country Mouse" schtick is old hat with me, ie. I largely agree with you on most points that Canada is the same as the US except that the US doesn't care about Canada 1/100th as much as vice versa.

[bush_cheney2004]

Yes, I used that term on purpose. All we can say is that there doesn't appear to be an impact from the 3% Somali population in Minneapolis on the crime rates there. There *could* be some countervailing factor, specific to Minneapolis, that's hiding the data but it hasn't been identified.

Not likely, as Minneapolis is a typical medium sized U.S. city. Immigrants of all kinds are faced with social and economic challenges, so there are supports in place from government and private organizations. Committing crimes is seldom the first option.

News flash: the two countries are largely the same. This is why your "Canada vs. US" / "City Mouse vs Country Mouse" schtick is old hat with me, ie. I largely agree with you on most points that Canada is the same as the US except that the US doesn't care about Canada 1/100th as much as vice versa.

Not according to your own criticisms for open government, data access, statistics/reporting, media, etc. "Largely the same" falls flat on those and several other measures. It is remarkable that Canadians are expected to make political choices and decisions (i.e. pending election) in the absence of such information, and just plain scary that some would reach across the border for immigrant bogeyman fairy tales.

Edited September 17, 2015 by bush_cheney2004

[Argus]

Ahhhh yes the old "everyone knows" fallacy.

Yes, everyone in Ottawa knows it.

And in case you accidentally missed it... Theres been a Conservative majority for most of the last decade. If they wanted to keep crime stats for immigrants, race, nationality, religion, or whatever else they could have done so. But go ahead... keep blaming everything on the imaginary boogey man inside your head.

The RCMP have been trying to gain the cooperation of municipal and provincial forces, but have gotten little cooperation.

[Argus]

Cite please.

You know very well official statistics are forbidden.

[Michael Hardner]

that doesn't mean you can post anything you want without challenge.

[Argus]

that doesn't mean you can post anything you want without challenge.

You can challenge it all you like. You don't live here so your judgement as to what the situation is here is logically not as good as mine.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Argus

[hitops]

Ok, I checked and you're right. However your assertion was: "Somalians have been a huge problem in the US,"

If you assert that 3% of the population of Minneapolis now commits crime at 10X the usual rate, then we're talking about a 30% impact over the whole population which you would assume to see in these numbers.

I see your point and understand why you would think that, but statistics don't work in that linear way for effect. I review oncology medical articles all the time as part of my job, and this is exactly the kind thing we discuss. Even in extremely dramatic subgroup effects, you may see no effect at all in the larger group, and only be made aware once you look at the subgroup in particular. For example 'triple negative' breast cancer patients do far, far worse than others. But in the whole group, the success rates of treatment are very similar whether or not you include that group. But when you examine only that group, you see the huge differences.

But those forces would have to pull ONLY on Minneapolis not on the others to counter the 30%, you see ? If the 'stronger forces' are happening everywhere then Minneapolis' crime numbers would stand out far more than they do today.

Well no because we are examining the whole city, not just the Somali population. For the same reason it's hard to tease out effects when most state's crime is decreasing, its hard to tease it out when most cities crime is decreasing. It's very easy to see the differences between african americans and whites because those groups data are specifically collected. Much harder when you do not collect the data for a given group.

At 10X the rate, then they would. And your assertion that they are a "huge" problem. Is it a huge problem or not ? What does "huge" mean ? Does it mean that they have a higher crime rate than other groups ? Does it mean they have 10X the crime rate ?

Regarding the effect, see above. Vis a vis 'huge', I mean huge relative to their population. I fully admit this is based on what police report and what people report (I know 3-4 people who live there), but I find it credible. Please understand I have nothing against immigrants or black immigrants, a fact that should be obvious when I cite the above-average performance of some Africans compared even to whites.

You don't seem to be getting that the reporting of crime rates for other cities in MN addresses that. The other cities act as a control group, in that the other factors would be at play in all cities listed but the Somali immigrant effect would be limited to Minneapolis. Again, there's nothing remarkable about Minneapolis either way when compared to the other cities.

There is no true control group unless you are comparing the same city. Because regional factors are at play which are not the same in all cities, or all states. You can never compare a parallel universe city, but you can compare groups within the same city - except in this case we just don't have the data, unless you know of some I don't.

The fact that the rates of change are so dramatic between different cities, some very negative, some very positive, tells you that it is all over the map. Even Minneapolis and St Cloud, practically the same place geographically, are actually very different places in the economic and demographic composition. And then we have these weird outliers that sort of defy reason - like the 30% increase in Rochester. Have you been to Rochester, MN? It's economy and population is basically IBM and Mayo clinic. It would be harder to a find a place more packed with PhD's and MD's than almost anywhere. I can't explain that.

Ok, but there's no report at the English link.... still need a cite for that.

The first link is directly to the official report, as far as I can tell.

Edited September 18, 2015 by hitops

[Michael Hardner]

You can challenge it all you like. You don't live here so your judgement as to what the situation is here is logically not as good as mine.

I can't judge anything until I have some kind of source.

[dre]

You can challenge it all you like. You don't live here so your judgement as to what the situation is here is logically not as good as mine.

Hey one fallacy followed up by another! This time a little ad vericundiam (appeal to authority). Nobody but you can know the truth about immigrant crime in Ottawa because you live there!

[Argus]

I can't judge anything until I have some kind of source.

And yet I'm willing to bet you fully support the Lefties on your council who order police and social services not to keep race statistics on crimes or welfare.

[Argus]

Hey one fallacy followed up by another! This time a little ad vericundiam (appeal to authority). Nobody but you can know the truth about immigrant crime in Ottawa because you live there!

If you don't live here then by what logic could your belief in the crime situation here be in any way comparable to mine?

[Michael Hardner]

And yet I'm willing to bet you fully support the Lefties on your council who order police and social services not to keep race statistics on crimes or welfare.

Yes and no. The fact that we can't even have a high quality debate on these things on MLW probably means the public and MSM wouldn't do a good job either. But I think the information should be available.

My solution would be to create a new 'public' to digest and discuss this information.

[Michael Hardner]

Even in extremely dramatic subgroup effects, you may see no effect at all in the larger group, and only be made aware once you look at the subgroup in particular.

Right but that's dependent on the relative strength of the numbers. There was an assertion of a 10X crime rate (in Sweden) for this group which I think we can say isn't the case for the Minneapolis group.

So we are in agreement, except on what the real level of concern is here and for whom.

There is no true control group unless you are comparing the same city. Because regional factors are at play which are not the same in all cities, or all states. You can never compare a parallel universe city, but you can compare groups within the same city - except in this case we just don't have the data, unless you know of some I don't.

I agree, but as BC says it's unlikely that this is the case.

The first link is directly to the official report, as far as I can tell.

I agree, I can't tell either.

[Argus]

Yes and no. The fact that we can't even have a high quality debate on these things on MLW probably means the public and MSM wouldn't do a good job either.

Conservatives can have a high quality debate. Unfortunately, there's pretty much no one here from the Left who can counter with anything but insults.

My solution would be to create a new 'public' to digest and discuss this information.

Maybe you could try and create a new MLW discussion group instead. At least that's doable with proper moderation.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Argus

[Michael Hardner]

Conservatives can have a high quality debate. Unfortunately, there's pretty much no one here from the Left who can counter with anything but insults.

I disagree.

Maybe you could try and create a new MLW discussion group instead. At least that's doable with proper moderation.

Maybe but we don't have statistics to start with. The Somali discussion was the best we have but we had an ok discussion on that one.