Rod, at 16:20 on Jun 01 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BL>   Year  Homicides  Rape  Population   Rate/M
BL>   64     270       260     10.5M      25.7
BL>   72     400       600     13.0M      30.8
BL>   82     700      1300     15.0M      46.7
BL>   90     960      2100     17.0M      56.5

BL> Where is Rod's STATIC rate?

RS> Something seriously fucked about your figures
RS> Bob, presumably mangling murder and homicide.

BG> Surely that's just semantics.

RS> Its not actually, there is a massive difference in the stats.

I still don't understand the distinction between murders and homicides.  If
that's somehow relevant, I want to know why.  There's absolutely no point
in going off half-cocked, nor even without ALL the data.

BG> What IS the difference between murder and homicide anyway?

Just a minute there, Rod.  It's hardly fair of you to expect us to take
YOUR interpretation of the stats at face value, and at the expense of
Bob's, when as far as I know, either of them could be right.

RS> I've quoted the detail from the NSW BCSAR in one to
RS> Bob. And some real stats too. How surprising that it
RS> exposes poor senile old Bob for the wanker he is. Again.

Of course, there's always the possibility that he might just be right too.

RS> Neil dug up some ABS figures in his local library which produced a 2/100K
RS> rate which matches mine and that was for the last 7 years he said, so there
RS> is something drastically fucked about Bobs stats, particularly when the NSW
RS> BCSAR and the federal one whose name escapes me for the moment, Bureau of
RS> Crime Stats or something, have BOTH been saying for quite a few years that
RS> the murder rate has been static for fifty years and the federal one even 
RS> did a special research project on child murder alone in the last year or so 
RS> and found precisely the same thing.

Well, I've always been quite happy to accept your statistics at face value
in the past, mainly because you have no obvious reason to misrepresent them
anyway, and I can see no reason to doubt them this time either, but it also
seems to me that Bob genuinely believes his stats to be correct this time.

I also have to say that my own gut reaction is that the per capita murder
rate has NOT remained quite as as static as the govt would have us believe,
but it
is not something which is as easy to prove as the Yearbooks might suggest.

Anyway, as there is absolutely fuck all I can do about it, I think I'd
prefer to live in blissful ignorance instead...

RS> Presumably the Year Book figures are just fucked, not murder at all.

It's certainly ambiguous, that's for sure.

RS> Or Bob has actually deliberately faked them, nothing would surprise
RS> me now after the pathetic spectacle he made on the teletext flicker.

Why Rodney, what a suspicious mind you have.  :)

Anyway, Bob might be a wanker, but I sincerely doubt that he's a cheat.

BG> The degree of intent perhaps?  Beats me.

RS> Yeah, it excludes stuff like drunk driving killing people etc.

Which just happens to be a criminal offence too.  A bit selective, IMO.

RS> Thats nothing like murder in the sense of premeditated murder.

The victims' families may well disagree with you there.

BG> So if I'm confronted by a burglar who claims not to be a murderer,
BG> but a homicidal maniac, I'm supposed to feel much more secure?  ROFL!

RS> In fact that alone has been thoroughly analysed too, the rate of the
RS> house occupant ending up dead due to a burglar etc hasnt changed much
RS> either tho there has been some increase with what appear to be the asian
RS> druggys doing home invasions of other asians to grab the money held there,
RS> normally deliberately choosing to do that when the occupants are there.

True, and it appears that the vast bulk of those Asian ones go unreported
anyway.  BTW, remember the fellow down the road at Greenbank, who's home
was violated about 6 weeks ago by two thugs in their mid-20s, his young
kids tied up, and his 13yo daughter repeatedly raped and sodomised in full
view of the rest of them?  Well the coppers caught the bastards who
allegedly did this (brothers, would you believe?), and they are currently
on remand (in custody) until they face the beak in December.  If they live
that long.

Regards, Bill
@EOT:

--- MsgedSQ/2 3.30