CAMBRIDGE POLICE DEPARTMENT

1996 ANNUAL REPORT

Crime Factors

Statistics show that a person is most likely to be assaulted in the middle of the day, at home, by someone he or she knows; therefore, a person is safest at night, on the street, with a stranger.

This quip illustrates one of the fundamental problems involved with interpreting statistics. Numbers do not always indicate what they seem, on the surface, to indicate. In the instance of the above statement, of course, streets are not always safe at night-particularly with strangers around. People know this, and stay inside at night, which is why they are not victimized on the street as often as they are at home.

The logical fallacy in the above witticism may appear obvious, but fallacies in other statistics are harder to see: Mid-Cambridge has by far the highest burglary statistics in the city. Any prospective Cantabridgian who rejects an apartment in Mid-Cambridge solely because of this statistic is making an error in judgment, however, as Mid Cambridge also has, by far, the highest population in the city. Where there are more residences, there are very likely going to be more burglaries.

Looking at one factor alone rarely provides an appropriate answer. East Cambridge, for instance, experiences a much higher than average street robbery rate than its population would suggest. The answer to this problem lies not in population, but in commercial traffic. The crowds at the Cambridgeside Galleria provide potential robbery targets.

Throughout the Annual Report, the Department tries to place statistics in context-to explain why crime occurs in a particular area, instead of just where and in how many numbers. It is quite impossible, however, to analyze for every crime factor within the pages of this report. As a general rule, readers should consider the following factors when gauging the relative safety of any city, neighborhood, or business district. Most of these are provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in their Uniform Crime Reports:

Residential population, population density, and degree of urbanization

Commercial and educational population

Composition of either population and, in particular, youth concentration

Number and type of commercial establishments, educational institutions, and recreational areas

Stability of the population with respect to residents' mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors

Street layout

Proximity to public transportation

Economic conditions, including median income, poverty level, and employment rate

Cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics

Family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness

Climate

Administrative and investigative emphases of the police department

Policies of other components of the criminal justice system (prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational)

Added to these factors must be the attitude of both the citizenry and the police towards crime, victimization, and cooperation with each other. Crime decreases most when citizens and police work together to fight crime, reduce fear, and improve the quality of life throughout the city.

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