I've gotta give it to the times for their coverage of homicide rates in NYC. Many papers would just report the numbers, talk about how it went up since last year or whatever. The NYT analyzes the data case by case and discovers something city dwellers have known for a long time. If your not involved in crime, you are extremely unlikely to be victimized by it.

The police said they were more interested in disrupting crime patterns. "We're looking for things with operational implications — time of day, day of the week — to see that we deploy officers at the right times and in sufficient numbers," said Michael J. Farrell, deputy commissioner for strategic initiatives.

The offender and victim were of the same race in more than three-quarters of the killings. And according to Mr. Farrell, they often had something else in common: More than 90 percent of the killers had criminal records; and of those who wound up killed, more than half had them.

"If the average New Yorker is concerned about being murdered in a random crime, the odds of that happening are really remote," Mr. Farrell said. "If you are living apart from a life of crime, your risk is negligible."

Criminologists confirm that assessment. "People will be shocked to see how safe it is to live in New York City," said Andrew Karmen, a sociology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an expert on victimology. "Victims and offenders are pretty much pulled from the same background. Very often, young victims have young killers. Very often, the victim and killer knew each other."

While the rates of annonymous crime are rising, and are about twice as high as they were in 1950 (it sounds like rage-related attacks are increasing), it's still good to see crime reporting that's balanced with regard to how people are actually victimized in this country. This accomplishes two things, for one, people are less likely to be irrationally afraid of being in a city, or seeing people of another race walk down the street. You are much more likely to be victimized by a member of your own race. The second thing this accomplishes is it makes it clear that involvement in crime, even relatively minor ones, is more dangerous than people think. There is good sense in warning people that they can regret the company they keep, and even living in a good neighborhood won't protect you if you're up to no good.

Huzzah for the Times, now if we could get WaPo to do the same for DC.