Talk:Crime in Washington (state)

Recent Updates
Hello everyone, I am working on this article for a university project. Looking forward to collaborating.JPanda1 (talk) 03:20, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

'''This is what I have added so far. These above sections can still have more information''' JPanda1 (talk) 06:40, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Included a hatnote to distinguish between Washington and Washington D.C..
 * I added a lead section consistent with most of the other lead section of crime in the US.
 * I updated the infobox and table in the history of crime section with more categories.
 * Previously I had put only statistics in the history of crime section which did not add any important information from an encyclopedic viewpoint. I hence moved the statistics to a new section called trends in crime and have used statistics to show and explain crime over time.
 * I then added some crimes which garnered attention in a timeline format to the history of crime section. I included relevant images aswell.
 * Added a Reponse to crime section detailing several initiatives, Acts, projects, etc that were put in place in response to the crime in Washington state.
 * I removed the previous Statistics section as it lacked sufficient information. This was incorporated into the Trends in crime section.

Crime rates
Using just the FBI Uniform Crime Reports to assess the crime rate in Washington state neglects the National Crime Victimization Survey and any associated estimates of the dark figure of crime. One cannot claim that crime has increased or reduced if one does not know how much crime is not reported to the FBI via their reporting system and how this has changed over time. It could be that the police are now more efficient at reporting crime that they previously ignored. One can only claim that the Reported Crime from the FBI reports has increased or reduced. Crime rates in Washington appear to have followed similar trends to crime rates in the United States, generally. So, I wonder why the article leads with crime rate information as these trends are not unique to Washington state. Also, because of population changes over the last 50 years or so, figures from each decade between 1960 and 2010 need to be adjusted by population to produce comparable figures per head of population, even within the existing table. Yes, crime counts might have increased, but so has the population that the crime occurs within. Unless the UCR statistics are properly analysed in an independent source, interpreting the statistics from the raw data is at least EDITORIALIZING, if not outright SYNTHESIS. This goes beyond numerical summarization or simple calculations of a routine nature. The cited source only contains the raw numbers, and says nothing about any statistical trends in the data. A source that analyses the UCR statistics, and provides interpretations is needed to claim anything about how crime rates have changed over time. Yes, you can publish the statistics, but they also need to be explained and interpreted appropriately by sources. After all, Wikipedia is not a collection of unexplained statistics. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 07:14, 13 January 2023 (UTC)