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Raw data: Crime in Los Angeles

I happened to see a local political ad a few minutes ago for some people I've never really heard of, but the gist was that one of them supported the allegedly odious George Gascón and was therefore unfit for office. For you non-natives, Gascón is an ex-LA cop who eventually became San Francisco district attorney and then returned south to run for LA district attorney on a reformist platform (end of cash bail, trying juveniles as juveniles, etc.). He won, and he's been in the crosshairs of crime hawks ever since.

I have some friends who are up in arms over Gascón, which is a little odd since my friends all live in Orange County. For that reason I've never paid any attention to Gascón, so I figured I should at least take a quick look at how things are going up in LA:

Meh. What's the fuss? Whatever Gascón is or isn't doing, violent crime in LA seems to follow the overall California trend almost perfectly. It's hard to see anything here to get bent out of shape about.

6 thoughts on “Raw data: Crime in Los Angeles

  1. Are you gonna eat that sandwich

    No amount of actual evidence will persuade the angry cranks on my Nextdoor feed that crime in LA is not running rampant thanks to Gascon. It’s thoroughly depressing, but Gascon is going to lose next month and California voters are almost certainly going to vote to rollback criminal justice reforms they voted for back in 2014. As many have said, whiteness is a hellava drug.

  2. Dana Decker

    George Gascón forbade prosecutors from filing additional charges, called enhancements, for a variety of crimes. These include belonging to a gang, using a gun, and prior convictions.

    Using a gun. Where do gun control advocates stand on that policy? Seems to me that the enhancement would deter gun use. Now that is no longer the case.

  3. jeffreycmcmahon

    "I have some friends who are up in arms over Gascón, which is a little odd since my friends all live in Orange County. "

    This isn't odd at all, since, despite significant demographic changes, Orange County is still the heartland of rich conservative assholes in the state of California (the state's rural areas are the heartland of not-rich conservative assholes).

  4. ColBatGuano

    Watching white suburbanites freak out over "urban crime waves" is common for all of us who live near blue cities. The folks around Seattle insist that the downtown is a hellhole overrun with MS-13 gang members who gun everyone down within minutes of stepping onto the street. Funny that the cruise ship visitors never seem to have a problem.

  5. geordie

    LA is not following the overall California trend. It is one of the largest inputs into the CA rate which is why the are in lockstep. The only way to make this chart useful is to compare LA to all of CA excluding LA.

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