The Commissioner of the NYPD doesn’t have a crime problem, but he does have a correlation problem.
Last year, more than 630,000 people were stopped, mostly black and Hispanic men. About half are frisked, and only about 10 percent are arrested. In the past decade, the city has seen the lowest number of murders since record-keeping began in 1966. In 1990, murders hit an all-time high of 2,245. In 2011, there were 515.
“We must be doing something right,” [Commissioner Kelly] said. “It’s not that people are getting nicer. Human nature hasn’t changed that much.”
The decline of murders in New York City also tracks the rise in popularity of downloadable MP3s. Clearly, digital music is doing something right. I mean, It’s not that people are getting nicer. Except for the part where they are. Ooo! In a turn for the meta, maybe correlating stop-and-frisks with a decline the murder rate is itself to credit for the decline in murder rates. Or maybe it’s correlating the correlation.