By Monotreme
Is Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey responsible for a sharp reduction in Ogden’s crime rate? His campaign webpage says he is:
Crime has dropped more than 23% since Matthew Godfrey became Mayor, including a drop in violent crimes of 43% compared with an increase of 21% during the 7 years before he took office. Moreover, the Mayor has put in place a zero-tolerance policy for gang-related crimes. He’s even asked for more immigration officers to come to Ogden to deport criminals that are caught here illegally. Without a doubt, Mayor Matthew Godfrey is tough on crime.Mayor Godfrey has claimed this reduction in crime during his administration several other places as well. For example, in the August 8, 2007 Standard-Examiner, announcing his gang crime measures, he’s quoted as saying, “We’ve had a precipitous decline in crime for the last eight years, and we’re not giving that up.”
“I’m thrilled with the 23% reduction in crime but I know we can achieve more. And as your mayor, I will continue to work hard to make your neighborhood even safer.” – Matthew Godfrey
Source: Ogden Police Department, Uniform Crime Report Statistics measured in crimes per 1,000 residents
There are several problems with this claim.
The first, and most obvious, is an example of the logical fallacy called, in Latin, post hoc ergo propter hoc — in English, “it happened, so (insert explanation here) must have caused it to happen”. Another way of saying this is the famous statistician’s phrase: “correlation doesn’t imply causality”.
Just because two things happen at the same time (in this case, Mayor Godfrey’s administration and a reduction in Ogden’s crime rate) doesn’t mean one led to the other.
Many students of criminal justice have argued that the crime rate has a lot more to do with demographic trends than with crime-fighting efforts. For example, the crime rate rises and falls with the number of males age 14 to 24 in the population, since almost all crimes are committed by males in that age group.
Did Mayor Godfrey’s efforts reduce crime in Ogden? One way of asking this question is, “did the reduction in crime fit the pattern of change in a different or larger population?” How does the crime rate in Ogden compare to the crime rate in the entire state of Utah?
As Mayor Godfrey’s web page indicates, these data are compiled in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR), issued annually. They’re available online at www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm. The last year with full data available is 2005.
The FBI breaks down these statistics into violent crimes (murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault) and property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson). In Ogden, and in Utah, as in the rest of the country, the overwhelming majority of crimes committed are property crimes.
Obviously, many more crimes are committed when lots of people are around. So, the UCR system levels this data for different places of different sizes by calculating the number of crimes per 100,000 population. (Not, as Mayor Godfrey’s web page asserts, per 1,000 population, but that’s a minor quibble.) To get the crime rate per 100,000 people, we simply divide the number of crimes by the population and multiply by 100,000. For example, for 1995, there were 422 violent crimes in Ogden and 69,290 people. 422 / 69,290 = 0.00609. 0.00609 x 100,000 = 609.0, the rate of violent crimes per 100,000 people.
The table below presents these data for the period 1995-2005:
Now, here’s the analysis of the data.
I can’t seem to reproduce Mayor Godfrey’s assertion that crime has been reduced in Ogden by 23% during his administration. In fact, comparing the years for which data are available (1995-1999, five years before Matthew Godfrey was mayor vs. 2000-2005, six years during which Godfrey was mayor), there appears to be a 28.5% reduction in the total crime rate (comparing the average of 8939.2, 9058.1, 9007.9, 8908.7, and 7989.9 vs. the average of 7726.6, 6678.4, 6656.8, 6488.3, 6911.9 and 6547.1). By this estimate, Mayor Godfrey is being modest.
However, for the entire state, there is a 31.7% reduction in crime comparing the same range of years. Ogden’s crime rate has dropped slightly more slowly than that for the entire state while Matthew Godfrey has been mayor.
Here’s the data as a graph:
Note that the crime rate for Ogden is higher than for the state as a whole. That’s expected, because Ogden is an urban area and much of the state is rural. It’s well known that crime rates are higher in urban areas.
What about that 43% drop in violent crimes?
It’s difficult to see any support for Mayor Godfrey’s assertion of a 43% drop in violent crime during his administration. There appears to be a slight reduction, 13% by my calculation, when comparing 1995-1999 data to 2000-2005 data. The comparable drop for the State of Utah over the same period is 24%.
There are several possible interpretations of the data shown here.
1. As he asserts on his campaign web page, Mayor Matthew Godfrey’s election reduced crime in Ogden.
2. Mayor Matthew Godfrey’s crimefighting skills are so strong, his election as Mayor of Ogden City didn’t just reduce crime in Ogden, but in the entire State of Utah.
3. The reduction in the number of crimes in Ogden had nothing to do with Mayor Godfrey’s administration.
Other, alternative, explanations are possible. I invite you to supply your own.
Mayor Matthew Godfrey may be “tough on crime”, as his web page asserts, but the data don’t support (or refute) that conclusion.
24 comments:
Mono:
Checking the Mayor's claims aginst the facts? Actually looking at the evidence? Doing the research necessary to reach a sound conclusion? You just won't fight fair, will you....
I can see you are one of those un-American types who is part of what Republicans like to sneer at and call "the reality based community."
Thanks for doing the digging, M. This is exactly the kind of fact checking and digging a good news paper does as a matter of course. Or should.
Let's not forget his "tough on infractions (traffic violations)" policy. As others here have pointed out he has increased the Traffic Division from 1 Sgt and 4 Officers to 2 Sgts and 10 Officers. While the Gang Unit remains at 1 Sgt and 4 Officers his entire tenure in office.
How can he claim to be tough on crime when Officers can not even rely on their equipment (cars) to get them to where they need to be. Officers on Ogden's streets are driving cars that are 10 years old (1996-1998 Chevy Lumina's) which are held together with duct tape and good intentions. This has created a sense of apathy in the officers in that the city (administration) does seem to care about the employees. The morale throughout the police department as well as the rest of the city is extremely low and dropping. Since statistics seem to be important to the Mayor right now, it would be interesting to see how many officers have left OPD in the last 7 years for other law enforcement jobs. I am not talking about retirement. I am talking about taking jobs at other departments who seem to care about their employees. Where are those statistics Mr Mayor?? The police department has become so understaffed that they had to hire over 10 officers just to start to catch up. They were borrowing detectives to fill in to work regular patrol shifts just to have enough on the streets. And yes this included Gang Detectives working patrol instead of their Gang assignment.
By the way Mr Mayor. What are you going to put those new hired officers in to drive? You guessed it.. 1996-1998 Chev Lumina's.
I wonder what catagory drive by shootings fall into, are these concidered property crimes or violent crimes? If no one is hit and only houses trees and cars are the victims, is that a property crime, petty, despite the potential for random death?
How about the prioritization of the lessor crimes, as far as dealing with their out comes? Traffic enfractions produce revenue, petty larsenies,burglaries and thefts don't produce near the income for the city, and in many cases cost money to prosecute and deal with the offender.
This mayor has been very adamant in his pursuit revenue generating crime prevention techniques and vey soft or inattentive to crimes that have the potential to grow into a much larger problem.(traffic tickets, gangs)
I suppose the easiest way to asses the crime situation in Ogden is to ask yourself a simple question, keep in mind you must include all areas of the city when asking yourself. Do I feel safer now, 2007, than I did in 1999? In 1999 there were no neighborhoods I felt uneasy going into, don't know that I can say that today.
Uh-oh. Wait until Thomas Moore finds out about the "incorrect information" on the mayor's website.
We all know how ticked off he gets about inaccurate inline information.
Godfrey's surely in for it now!
The UCR Numbers for Ogden are collected and reported by Ogden. This makes it relatively simple to skew them. For example, A person breaks into your home, rummages through you belongings and gets scared off, what crime has he committed? By statute it is Burglary, a crime which must be counted in the UCR numbers. What does Ogden call it? A trespass, which is not reported as a UCR crime. This is just one of thousands of crimes that are not reported in the UCR that taint the crime rate. Just as with the RDA and other fiscal adventures Mayor Godfrey has undertaken, the numbers are skewed. Having seen this, first hand, for the last 7+ years, I swear that The Godfrey administration must all be graduates of ENRON U!
In a meeting with the police officers Mayor Godfrey had the gumption to tell them “Your vehicle is more likely to be burglarized in Park City than in Ogden.” He was called on it and became very angry with the police officer who laughed. This unfortunate officer was very quickly disciplined and ordered to apologize to the Mayor. His offense was that he was insubordinate to the Mayor by laughing at his Ogden safer than Park City statement.
September 11th is already a day of infamy, we don’t need another reason.
Anyone but Godfrey!
Liars:
I understand what you're saying. I asked myself a slightly different question: do the data actually support the claims made by the Godfrey campaign?
That is, if I go mine the same data sources, and lay out the same statistics (as flawed as they may be), does it jive with what Godfrey is saying? It does not.
I guess I think it's one kind of lie to skew the numbers to suit your purposes, a sort of self-delusion.
It's another kind of lie entirely to knowingly make up numbers to suit your ends. Let's call it an "aggravated lie" or perhaps "depraved indifference to the truth".
I can cite for you dozens of occasions where the Godfrey administration has acted with depraved indifference towards publicly available numbers. The gondola ridership and these crime stats are just two examples.
They're betting that no one will go actually look at the numbers and call them on it. You know what? They bet wrong.
All sorts of other lies can be explained away by differences in word definitions (for example, the claim on the Godfrey web page that he's reduced public debt by shoving it over to the RDA). Gee, aren't we the same taxpayers? That one begs for a critical analysis, similar to what Dan S. did for the gondola brochure (sorry, can't find the URL, maybe Dan will pop in to supply it). Some other WCF reader, one more versed at public finance than me, will need to write that one up.
However, Mayor Godfrey is lying when he claims that UCR statistics show a 43% drop in violent crime during his administration. That's not a matter of interpretation. That's a plain and simple lie, a misrepresentation of the facts. I find that deeply offensive.
As Judge Judy says, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining."
It just goes to show what a Dumass Mayor Godfrey is. How he survived Weber State University without having developed even the minutest critical thinking skills is beyond me.
Maybe the electorate doesn't care about the truth. Call me a Pollyanna, but I believe that in a democracy, you give people the information and let them decide.
News hound:
Gee, I should just call the Mayor's office and ask him why the discrepancy in the numbers.
According to Mr. Moore, that's all I need do.
monotreme,
Thanks for the analysis. You asked for a pointer to my earlier analysis of gondola-related claims. Here it is. And note the date! Exactly one year ago today. I apologize that I haven't kept it up to date with the additional misinformation we've received in the last year.
Mono:
You asked, of the Mayor, "How he survived Weber State University without having developed even the minutest critical thinking skills ...."
I suspect, M, that he did develop those skills at WSU. What he did not develop was a strong enough sense of ethical conduct to know that employing them honestly mattered much in public office or in appeals to the electorate.
I'm sorry to say that I'd have a hard time making the case that the electorate [national, state or local] regularly rewards honesty and ethical conduct in those it elects, or regularly punishes the lack of them.
And our elected officials know this. Both parties. The best example is the Savings and Loan mess. Congressional leaders knew for over a year before the S and L "crisis" broke in the news, that it was coming. It kept the matter secret for a year until after the approaching Congressional elections out of fear that breaking the matter earlier would impact the re-election chances of incumbents. Ultimately the taxpayers had to bail out the S and Ls with $650 billion in public funds. That number was many billions higher than it would have been had Congress broke the news and started the bailout a year before the election. Billions more. But, with both party leaderships complicit, they kept it all quiet until the election was over. And they got away with it. Few were held accountable. Ever.
I'd have a hard time making the case that most people make any serious attempt to look into claims of elected officials at all. Wisely or not, most people generally rely on the press to do the fact checking for them.
I heard Newt Gingrich give a remarkable speech to the Washington Press Club on C-Span last week. In it, he said [among other things] that "at some point, patriotism has to come before partisanship" meaning that whoever wins the next election, members of the other party have to understand that the country needs that president to succeed in governing the nation, and that therefor they must, for the good of the nation, work to help that success happen... they must put patriotism [the good of the nation] above partisanship, as he thought neither party has done of late.
It's a sorry pass we've come to when Newt Gingrich has a defensible claim to being the voice of non-partisanship.
That relates to one of, in my view, the strongest reasons to not grant the Godfrey administration a third term. The Mayor has proven, again and again, his inability to work cooperatively with an independent Council, he has proven again and again his contempt for the Council and its oversight function in the Mayor/Council form of government. And he seems to have learned nothing. From his buying the expensive bleacher seats for the amphitheater when the previous Council specifically told him not to because the City budget could not afford the cost just then, to his keeping the Council in the dark about the Ernest Co. matter until the Council had to ask questions in open session that the administration should have supplied the answers to long before [with unhappy consequences], to his Administration's contemptuous refusal to tell the RDA Board, when asked, who wanted to buy the Bootjack properties, the Mayor's MO seems not to have changed at all. He can not work closely with, cooperatively with, and for the good of the City with, an independent Council. He can apparently work well only with a rubber-stamp Council with a majority on it which considers asking questions and accountability in government to be anti-business practices not to be tolerated. If I knew nothing else about his Administration, that alone would move me to vote for one of his challengers. Putting virtually all power and authority into the hands of a single branch of even local government is never a good idea. Never. Separation of powers and checks and balances as principles of government matter.
Even in Ogden.
If a citizen sees a crime, or has one committed against them, and calls the police, and the police do not show up, or do show up and don't take a report, is it still a crime? Is it reported in these bogus statistics that Godfree and Griener propogate to show what great leaders and crime fighters they are?
If these so called "statistics" do reflect what the lying little bastard says, then a very likely reason would be the terribly understaffed OPD simply doesn't have the man power to answer all the calls that come in about crime, therefore a very large portion of the crime doesn't even get reported and as a result doesn't find their way into his "statistics".
I still harken back to the lady on 26th and Porter who says she has made up to a hundred calls to police about criminal activity on her block, and virtually never sees the police respond. Does this mean that the 2500 block of Porter is a crime free zone?
There is an old saying that certainly seems to apply to our lyin little lord mayor: "there are lies, there are damned lies, and their are statistics".
He can spout all the lying statistics he can make up in his fertile little corrupt brain, but the bottom line is - is Ogden safer and more crime free now than when he was first elected?
I seriously doubt if there are many citizens in town that would say yes to that one. Ask your friends and neighbors this question and see what the overwhelming answer is.
Tom Moore, Sr. (the arrogant, queeny, effeminate asshat who gravy-trains his wife's Browning fortune and seems to have eaten his nearly endless Ralph Lauren coutre collection -- which I greatly coveted, by the way, until it found its way into the self-deluded, self-aggrandizing, condescending gondola freak's boiler) would disagree with you there, Good Old (?) Curmudgeon; we cannot afford ethical and representative government because we are on the verge of being the High-adventure Whack-A-Mole capital of the world and we need genius like Lying Little Matty Gondola Godfrey at the helm! Question nothing! We have a development anchored by a taxpayer-subsidized bowling alley and skydiving simulator! And we need more onions! THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE.
Curm, you write (paraphrasing Gingrich) that "members of the other party have to understand that the country needs that president to succeed in governing the nation, and that therefor they must, for the good of the nation, work to help that success happen... they must put patriotism [the good of the nation] above partisanship." And then you say that Gingrich has "a defensible claim to being the voice of non-partisanship." You give him way too much credit. As I'm sure you will agree, patriotism does, as you say, involve working for the good of the nation. But Gingrich's error is equating this with the claim that the country needs the president to succeed in governing the nation. Depends entirely on how the prez wants to govern. Repubs have been saying for much of Bush's presidency that Dems just need to get on board for the good of the nation, be patriots - just as Lifties have been saying that Ogdenites have to get on board the G-train and support the mayor. Partisanship can be a good thing. And fortunately in our non-partisan city elections, we are seeing the rise of an opposition party.
Cato:
No argument, that partisanship can be a good thing, and in fact that our two-party system assumes it, and in fact relies on it's existence most times. The point Gingrich was making, I think, was that partisanship [defined as opposing whatever the other side proposes merely because the other side proposes it --- or, conversely, supporting what your side proposes merely because your side proposes it] is dangerous to the public good. An example he used was Republicans in Congress marching in lock-step to support Bush administration spending that has ballooned the debt to unheard of levels... while claiming to be fiscal conservatives and attacking Democrats as spendthrifts. That's what he meant, I took it, by blind partisanship. [He offered examples from the left as well.]
When the two parties represent, generally or on specifics, two different political philosophies , partisanship "works" so to speak, as it was intended, as each battles to implement its policy preferences. But when the parties abandon any pretense of advocating coherent political philosophies in the name of supporting their own man in office, regardless of what he proposes, then partisanship has trumped patriotism in Gingrich's sense.
Seemed a reasonable argument to make. Still looking for a transcript. He had much else to say regarding the election process that sounded like simple common sense. E.g. that expecting a presidential candidate... either party... to answer in thirty seconds a question about, say, middle eastern policy or health care or the economy in any meaningful way is {I will quote him) "insane." Hard to argue with that.
So, partisanship linked to principle and policy and philosophy is one thing, and the foundation of a two party system. This card-carrying Yellow Dog New Deal Democrat loves to mix it up on the campaign trail. But what I presume Gingrich [and I] would call "blind partisanship" which ignores policy and political philosophy and grounds support only on the political affiliation of a president is another matter.
Stop making me say reasonable things about Gingrich. Puts me right off my feed, it does.
Thanks for the article, Mono and Rudi. It's one of the best I've ever read on WCForum. I've mailed the link to all my friends, and I'd suggest that others who were impressed with the analysis do the same.
Mono:
Masterful. Thank you! BTW..who attended CC tonite? Did anyone get up and beg the council NOT to give 300,000. to the unknown Windsor Hotel group?
Did the council vote no to that ploy??
Sharon:
Don't know if the Council acted on this tonight, but I'm afraid I have to disagree on some of what you said. [Big surprise, huh?]
You wrote of the "unknown Windsor Hotel group." Hardly. The partners in the LLC involved were identified by the Administration in its presentation to the Council. They are already owners of several properties in downtown Ogden. They are out-of-staters, but I don't think you'd want to argue that no one but Ogden residents, or Weber residents, or even Utah residents, should be permitted to invest in Ogden properties, or to apply for whatever incentive funds are available. The applicants being out of staters does not seem to be to be in any way relevant.
At the work session, the Administration [in the person of Mr. Harmer] made a case for the grants that I had not heard made before: that without the grants, a rehab and preservation of the historic structure, its "look and feel," could not be done profitably. That if the idea was simply to bulldoze the building and build anew from the ground up, no subsidy would be necessary, but if Ogden wants to preserve the historic structure as a historic building, the subsidy was the only way for investors to carry it off profitably.
Two considerations come to mind: first, does preserving the turn of the century look and feel of 25th matters enough to shell out a quarter of a million to do it? I think it does. There has been enough saved [though sadly much has been lost, like the wonderful hotel that was bulldozed and replaced by the god-awful Neo-brutalist Key Bank building at the corner of Washington and 25th]to make the turn of the century look and feel of the street attractive as a draw for business, tourists, etc. If, and I said if, the only way to preserve the historic Windsor building is the subsidy, then I think the money will be well spent.
The second consideration, though, is this: has the Council satisfied itself that what Mr. Harmer claimed on behalf of the applicants is in fact so? Sadly, the Godfrey administration has squandered the benefit of the doubt that is normally granted to administrations when presenting information to Councils. Far too often the Administration has assured the Council of things that turned out to be not so. The Council was assured that a certain ceramics firm wanted to buy the Shupe Williams property. It didn't. The Council was assured the St. Anne's board favored a move to 12th Street. It didn't. And the Administration's fiddling with the gondola proposal numbers needs no recounting, surely, by now.
So the question is: did the Council satisfy itself that it is in fact true that renovation and preservation of the building are not economically feasible for a private developer without the subsidy? Do Mr. Harmer's numbers add up? [Under normal circumstances that would be an insulting question to ask of a representative of a city administration presenting to a City Council. Sadly... very sadly... such questions have become necessary to ask in re: nearly every presentation the Godfrey administration now makes. Its past performance has made that so.]
But, again, if the numbers stand up, if it is in fact so that preservation of the historic structure could not be managed without the subsidy, then if I were on the Council, I'd vote for it. But I'd damn well want to satisfy myself about those "ifs" first.
Here I must [painfully, for the second time today--- shudder] speak with some favor about a Republican. Ronald Reagan is famous for having said of treaties with the Russians: "Trust, but verify." Sadly, the Godfrey administration no longer deserves even that level of confidence in its veracity. The Council should take Reagan's advice, but rearrange the order. Every time, from now on,when the Administration makes a presentation and a recommendation, the Council should "Verify. Then trust."
Sharon,
The Council did pass “that ploy.” I still have mixed emotions about it, and have considered asking the Council to reconsider it at their next meeting. My head tells me to vote for it -- to keep the progress on 25th Street going – to get rid of an eyesore and have a viable business or businesses with a few apartments in it. My heart/stomach tells me to vote “nay.” I usually listen to them, but there were some pretty good arguments put forth tonight from people who are involved with 25th Street supporting the renovation of that old hotel. I still don’t know which way is the right way to vote – I would like more information. I guess I do know which is the right way to vote, but I want to know WHY I should vote against it besides it being an RDA project using tax increment funds. Email me, please, with good, sound reasons why I should ask the Council to reconsider this issue at jeske4ogden@comcast.net Thanks.
Dear Councilwoman Jeske:
If Mr. Harmer was correct that the historic preservation could not have been done without the subsidy, there really were only three options:
(a) Keep the Windsor operating one short step up from a flop house,in deteriorating condition.
(b)bulldoze the thing and put up an entirely new structure [without subsidy].
(c) grant the subsidy to enable the historic renovation/preservation.
If those were my only choices, I'd have voted "yea" as you did. If you were satisfied that Mr. Harmer's numbers were good, that the above were in fact the only viable options, I think you cast the correct vote. If you were satisfied that Mr. Harmer's numbers were sound and that those were the only viable options the Council faced.
The only thing that gives me pause is your statement above that you would have liked more information.
a $250,000 subsidy is peanuts on a building the size of the Windsor. If this subsidy is the make or break point then maybe there needs to be another owner with larger cahones. Anyone who has ventured into historical preservation knows the money pit they are about to dive into. 250k may redo one floor in quality materials. This is another FOM deal and we should put an end to them all very soon.
Dorrene...one should listen to one's gut...if it's rumbling. Usually a good indicator when something's stirring, eh?
I wish y'all had voted NO...let's take more time. Godfrey's MO is always to do it now.
Remember the 7.3 million that had to spent before Dec 31, '05? "Use it or lose it" the liar said.
How come a historic bldg can't be bot and preserved by the new investors? WHY does Ogden tax monies have to be ponied up? Y'all believe Harmer???
He who could not and would not tell the council who was behind Bootjack? Didn't want to stir up controversy, he said.
Puhleeze, people. Did Van Hooser vote no...or is she befuddled by the mayor and Harmer?
Yes, Dorrene...ask for this vote to be rescinded. Until the check is cut, ain't nothin' in stone.
Curm..thanx for quoting a great American, Pres Reagan... (hope your fingers aren't singed) hold your hat....I agree that this council needs to VERIFY BEFORE TRUSTING. Then, still be dang cautious; as one should always be in a den of vipers.
Curm...phooey on you for saying you would have voted yes.
Dorrene...do the right thing. Thanx for your reply.
Something just occured to me, Dorrene.
Did y'all have the Windsor Group into your Admin mtg and ask them to show you their solvency?
How do you know that after you give them all that money that they have the means to finish?
Have you seen their plans?
Has anyone?
Remember, Moyal and the poor schmuck who first wanted the Windsor didn't have plans that suited the mayor!
C'mon, Council...do your due diligence. ASK questions..."Show you the plans and the money"....criminy. This is serious business here. Renovating the hotel sounds great...but will they carry thru to completion? Without coming back for more dough? Do you KNOW they'll finish the job that based on anything presented by them?
I keep telling Schwebke to ask questions, and then the follow-up questions, and then more follow-up questons. This is more serious than one of Scott's pr stories (tho he's been better of late).
Sharon:
You wrote: Curm...phooey on you for saying you would have voted yes.
Not precisely what I said, which was that if I had assured myself there there was no other way to preserve the historic structure as a historic structure, I'd have voted yes. And not otherwise. It's not a trivial distinction.
'scuse me, pal.
You people are not representative of who Ogden's citizens are. Ogden has better. What have you people done for Ogden? And don't tell me that hugging a tree counts as your good deed for the day.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Did you all sit around and watch the Mall fold back in the 90's, thinking that no one had to do anything or did you actualy try to build up Ogden? Thats what I thought.
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