Crime Stats Are A Lie

Get my Math Box: www.melscience.com/kevin
Use code KEVIN for 50% off your first box
We’ve been collecting and analyzing social statistics for about 200 years now. In some ways, we’ve made a lot of progress -- but in others, we’re just as clueless now as when André-Michel Guerry first set forth his laws of tracking crime. Mixing math and morality introduces so many possible variables that our interpretations of the data can range from insightful to harmful. Comparisons of violent crime between Scotland, India, and Estonia show just how difficult it is to make sense of social statistics, especially if we try to judge them in relative terms.
A handful of additional problems plague our analysis: data and its inferences that are good today might not hold up in the future, and a study of Boston-area youth shows how surprising long-term outcomes can be. Perverse financial incentives, underreporting, and catching minor criminals instead of the major drivers of crime all make our understanding of antisocial behavior that much more tenuous. Throw in the media’s use of our social statistics and it feels like the more we know about crime, the less we understand.
** ADDITIONAL READING **
Analysis of A-M Guerry’s “Essay on the Moral Statistics of France,” by Michael Friendly: www.datavis.ca/gallery/guerry/
English Translation of Guerry’s Essay, by Whitt & Reinking: www.datavis.ca/gallery/guerry...
“The Mismeasure of Crime,” by Mosher, Miethe, and Phillips (2011): sk.sagepub.com/books/the-mism...
“The Cambridge-Somerville Study: A Pioneering Longitudinal Experimental Study of Delinquency Prevention,” McCord, J. (1992). psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-9...
“Crime Waves and Moral Panics,” by Morgan Godvin: daily.jstor.org/crime-waves-m...
** LINKS **
Vsauce2:
TikTok: / vsaucetwo
Twitter: / vsaucetwo
Facebook: / vsaucetwo
Talk Vsauce2 in The Create Unknown Discord: / discord
Vsauce2 on Reddit: / vsauce2
Hosted and Produced by Kevin Lieber
Instagram: / kevlieber
Twitter: / kevinlieber
Podcast: / thecreateunknown
Research and Writing by Matthew Tabor
/ tabortcu
Editing by John Swan
/ @johnswanyt
Huge Thanks To Paula Lieber
www.etsy.com/shop/Craftality
Vsauce's Curiosity Box: www.curiositybox.com/
#education #vsauce #crime

[@jinks3669]

I am an Indian and I can tell you that most crimes here are not reported because no one wants to get into the judicial ,legal , criminal process. It is said here that "the process is the punishment" , so if you've been a victim , you'd suffer more during the prolonged process of getting justice than the crime itself. So many people spend their entire life fighting for justice .

[@alexanderphilip1809]

Exactly.

[@peterparker9954]

Here in India, r@pe victims suffer more than the r@pists themselves, which is horribly misogynistic

[@rakshit8570]

Not exactly. 50 million cases are pending its reported thats why there are so much cases.

[@rasputin774]

Not same everywhere in India though, there are some states with really good police, hence very high reported crime rates

[@greendevil8796]

Totally false and exaggerated statement from a room locked person Ig , you either are too narrowly visioned or u don't have time to do research , I've seen reports from the people you'd least expect . In no country do they complain about fights in a burger stall to the police bruh ... It's when a person physically has threatend u to almost take ur life or harmed your dignity that's when a person reports .

[@abhigyanbisaria2603]

As an Indian, I felt assaulted by that fist shake

[@puneetmaheshwari]

Me too, let's report to police for spreading heat online /s

[@hydronuke]

@@puneetmaheshwari bhai /s stands for serious i think you meant /j 💀💀💀

[@cookiecrumbzi]

@@hydronuke /s means sarcasm

[@puneetmaheshwari]

@@hydronuke /s is for sarcasm brother it is all over reddit

[@Wmann]

@@puneetmaheshwari Ah.

[@mr.sharma6504]

Last week in India, a truck scratched our car. But instead of calling the police, I called the owner of the logistics company and threatened to register a case against him. He offered to fix the dent for free since he owns a garage. The case was settled right there with no police being involved.

[@TitusAzzurro]

Unrelated to your story, but if i ever run a food truck I'll call it Sharma's Shawarmas. Good day sir.

[@bn1193]

@@TitusAzzurro Thats great name. But only if you start a shawrma truck

[@flyingdragon6275]

@@TitusAzzurro great name lol

[@FirestormX9]

@@TitusAzzurro you're a marketing legend, sir/ma'am

[@avijitgoswami3082]

@@TitusAzzurro i hope you will be a successful businessman person 👍

[@VishalYadavSays]

As an Indian we settle out fights with Angry Handshakes and settle the fight there only

[@SwornInvictus]

I absolutely love how you guys handle aggression 😆

[@maartenn2217]

Y'all seem to have a little religious gang raping problem over there too

[@adwaitnaravane5285]

You you bloody.

[@unknown-mx9it]

@@maartenn2217 what! Where you got these type of information.

[@srimanjha5112]

@@maartenn2217 source? or is it just trust me bro?

[@Ethan_-iw8ug]

I'm Scottish and i'm surprised that alcohol consumed statistic isn't higher. It's literally our culture

[@natendragon7172]

Do your part and get those numbers up

[@NoName-to5xl]

That means you know it, you live with it and kniw how to manage it. Im from italy where wine is not even considered drinking. Its food. Cultures with stronger puritanical inheritance have the "drinking problem" like the usa.

[@JustAPokemonCommentingOnVideos]

india has 220 million muslims as well majority of whom don't drink alcohol at all as it is banned in their religion so that is even more embarrassing for scots that indians got this close

[@remwastaken]

@@NoName-to5xl i mean here in italy i don't think people drink full on bottles of wine all the time. Also i think drinking wine is treated kinda like having a coke with a pizza or something. It isn't something you drink to no end on a night out, while more traditional alcohol i think is treated as a full on "let's drink a lot and have fun" type of beverage in scotlan. I could easily be wrong but from how people talk about pubs in the english peninsula it feels that way at least.

[@MrGelliantGutfright]

@@remwastaken English peninsula?

[@kiran258]

Im Indian and I solve all my problems by shaking my hand vigorously , sometimes multiple times.

[@sheezy2526]

While wobbling your head?

[@rickb06]

​@@sheezy2526yeah, don't be wobbly.

[@puneetmaheshwari]

As a Indian i can confirm we don't like to go police for a fight with someone

[@chromiyum6849]

Going to the police is for betas. Alphas can shake their fists for hours 😎😎

[@wooshifgay462]

@@chromiyum6849 alpha male thing is a myth, you know that right?

[@chromiyum6849]

@@wooshifgay462 welllll yes and no

[@cookiecrumbzi]

@@wooshifgay462 yes, but the reply’s supposed to be a joke

[@wooshifgay462]

@@cookiecrumbzi it definitely didnt seem that way, unfortunately people who define their entire personalities around the alpha male myth are more common that it should be

[@nishanttripathi4021]

TBH, here in India, we don't get involve physically easily but most of the time even a road rage constitutes only an exchange of "F-words"

[@realShikha885]

More like MC BC, BSDK

[@shinchannohara5621]

"Hath lagake bataa"

[@bn1193]

Because when it comes to hand on hand fighting. Common people in India would have the idea "he is one among me" in the back of the mind. So you would hold back. I might be wrong but this is what I seen from many fights.

[@asingha94]

Haha mostly laga na laga na dikha na dikha na

[@arnoldschwarzenigga2268]

@@asingha94 Yes ! 😂😂😂

[@Samouraii]

Would you rather fight 1 Scot sized Indian or 100 Indian sized Scots? 🤔

[@TheKingBeyondEverything]

I'd rather fight you for writing nonsense 😂

[@SupahBro535]

This is a very important question I need answered.

[@NoName-to5xl]

1 scot sized indian for sure

[@TrekDelta]

Would you rather fight a zombie sized chicken or chicken sized zombies?

[@alexanderveritas]

Do you even watch *Bollywood* movies? A _Scottish sized Indian_ would be the *Bollywood* equivalent of *John Wick.* I’m telling you, none of us would stand a chance.

[@12villages]

My Indian relative lives in the US. In closed door gossip, his take is that many in the US have some form of an unknown mental illness that makes them unpredictable on the streets.

[@ravinakuwar1407]

Most of the people in west has very little inter personal contact with other people in their life and spend a lot of time indoors due to harsh winter there. Which makes them kind of anti Social beings.

[@shantanupant7724]

Correct

[@juanausensi499]

It's not a mental illness, but a somewhat justified paranoia caused by some nasty vicious circles. Because everybody got guns, people are afraid, so they get guns. Because everybody got guns, people know their assaulters* could shoot them, so they tend to shoot first, justifying the other person's fears. *i mean 'assaulters' in the broadest meaning possible, that includes criminals, police and civilians

[@chickenpuncher1674]

Probably do, but I dont think weve ever had organ stealing gangs tho.... Also he moved here, nobody forced him to, guy sounds like a wall licker.

[@sian5483]

Americans do seem to lack the idea of personal responsibility and self control. Yes mental illness exist but it’s rarely the case that your mental illness will literally turn you into a loose canon. Americans just use it to justify any form of violence they commit because their culture glorifies mental illness.

[@fugslayernominee1397]

Being from India I can confirm we handle fist-shaking ourselves lol most people don't even want to go through the hassle of reporting normal fights/crimes until it turns real bloody.

[@Butunmallick7851]

We should ,this shows how mature Indians r

[@ibadrizvi5740]

@@Butunmallick7851 It sounds more like a lack of trust in the policing system rather than maturity

[@ashaypallav4158]

@@ibadrizvi5740 It's not about lack of trust, it's about shame. If you go to the jail then the whole Indian society would look down upon you as if you have done some serious crime.

[@ytbois9337]

@@ibadrizvi5740 people feel thje police will attack them and put them in jail why ? becuz indians dont even know their rights in this country they have the right to do what they came but noboy uses them i have used ahelp from the police many times they are helpful and great the indian people break the rules and then they blame the police for putting a fine on then and then they cry on utube that police are attacking them

[@devendrapoonia1]

@@ibadrizvi5740 It is not about trust at all. It is a culture here, settling disputes without police involvement. Ground reality is always different. People always see negative part of it, but it is not always.

[@ishansharma2463]

I don't know if it's true or not, but calling police on someone in India is almost equivalent to ruining their lives cause it's really looked down upon in our country. So we would never do it for small fights, it's either resolved by the people around them controlling them or them just exchanging some swears and moving on.

[@shadowninja6689]

Media reporting is definitely a problem with people's perceptions of crimes. There's been mayors of major cities that got voted out of office because (according to public polling) people believed that crime was up under their leadership, when in fact crime (including violent crime) was actually down, but because the local media constantly hyped up any violent crimes that occurred the public incorrectly believed that crime was up.

[@KibitoAkuya]

The opposite has probably happened too

[@diakounknown1225]

@@KibitoAkuya well yeah. But seeing is believing. So what you mentioned won't affect most people. It's not irrelevant though

[@emmafountain2059]

@@KibitoAkuya yeah, but it leans a lot more towards fear of crime. Making people afraid keeps them watching, nobody cares when the news says “everything’s going great, crime is down”, but saying “crime is rising and YOU are in danger, tune in at 10 to learn more”, convinces people they need to “stay informed”. Media is incentivised to scaremonger.

[@SafavidAfsharid3197]

In india living in a town of 130k in a poor state, i have seen very few crimes. Only 4-10murders in 10 year of living here. I haven't even gotten into fights in my school or colleges because and i have seen very few assult. When i visit some fight subreddit in reddit i always wonder like how they can fight like this. If we fight like that it would be considered attempt to murder here.

[@xandex69]

Wait you have seen 4-10 murders 💀

[@danialrafid]

@@xandex69 How is that funny? 😐

[@juliaf_]

@@danialrafid the fact that they've _seen_ that many

[@ad2050]

@@xandex69 I think he meant he heard of 4-10 murders in the past 10 years. People who witness murders usually know exactly how many they've witnessed, it's not a "4-10" type statistic they'll say. Also, English isn't his first language...

[@o9708]

@@juliaf_ bro that's 4 in 130k, and that's too in 10 years, that's way less. That wouldn't even affect anyone's life in that city...

[@ritanshusingh8064]

Comparing Indian society to any western is not directly possible because Indian society and people behave like a closed system relying on each other much more than any western society. To see the difference, just observe people fighting on streets in India and any western country and you will see how different they behave

[@WarWarWar4049]

Right. Few months ago I was curious about how westeners fight in the streets compared to Indians. So I took two subreddits for a rough reference. r/gharkekalesh and r/justicenow. Btw justice now is banned for some reason. What I observed was even serious fights in India were limited to regular slaps and uneffective kicks. But even small disputes in west were met with serious punches which most of the time result in knockouts.

[@rinkiek3917]

i think that is the whole point. That cultures affect how people behave in a society. Something that will not reflect in the numbers.

[@ritanshusingh8064]

@@rinkiek3917 Its not same for every culture. A French or German culture would be much closer to American than an Indian culture. Also, the level of intermingling you see in Indian culture is unparalleled anywhere in the world. Have you travelled in Indian trains. In mere 6 hour journeys, people get bonded to each other sharing food and concerns.

[@gamerrex5940]

Agreed!

[@rinkiek3917]

@@ritanshusingh8064 That's whati'm saying. The fact that you can expect people to be more close to one another in the indian culture (making them less likely to be extremely violent) to a more western culture that promotes being indifferent and individuality (making the assaults more impersonal and extreme) are thr kinds of stuff numbers wont tell you. You'll have to live in India and the west in order to know these kinds of information.

[@PotionsMaster666]

Here in India, when the assaulter's uncle's cousin's nephew is a police inspector, reporting a crime becomes a bit hairy, lol

[@shubhamdhull2060]

has here in india it very unlikely that some one in ur family or ur friend or some family member friend don't have some as a police as a friend or realtive also i have u don't have just sue them in court u can do that too

[@friendlyatheist9589]

In india everyone has some connections in middle class so it's equals up

[@hindustanimapper]

This is the case all over the world

[@keeperse6]

@@hindustanimapper No, I don't think so..? Maybe in a lot of places, but certainly not everywhere.

[@THUGPUTIN]

No, road rage/assault are not reported in india... Majority of times, Indian crowd steps in and makes sure both go different ways or if they see someone wrong they'll join the assaulter to assault him for his fault...😂🤣😂 Even cops don't arrest for road rage/assault, often times they settle it through talking...

[@maninlove]

As younger brother in Indian family, i can confirm waving your hand is definitely punching.

[@Imperiused]

This has really been an incredible series. I will ALWAYS recommend it anyone who'll listen!

[@smileyp4535]

Vsauce 2?

[@antagonisticalex401]

​@@smileyp4535No. The series of Crime Analysis using Data Science.

[@arthurmorgan8638]

I as an Estonian can agree that our country is one of the safest countries in the world but has high death rates to suicides and traffic accidents

[@ritupandey2324]

I don't feel like I would say traffic accidents safe

[@shiva4774]

Learn to drive

[@aruncv1373]

Why suicides and accidents?

[@dekumarademosater2762]

@@aruncv1373 ethanol

[@Butunmallick7851]

How is it safe when people commit suicides🤣

[@Arceaus98]

2:58 That "Does this sound familiar" honest to God sounded like you could put it in a movie as a villain's line somewhere. That inflection was unsettling lol

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

That's the beginning of a speech that ends in "The only solution is to eliminate the problem. Permanently."

[@archiem654]

In india, if an assault happen, you go to their parents and they beat their son/daughter themselves to make you feel compensated. And not let the issue escalate. Orrr the two clans/families/communities gather to discuss. If one clan is lesser influential in any way, they have to compromise. 😥

[@Your_spanish_el_amigo]

Remindes me of village quarrels 😹

[@archiem654]

@@Your_spanish_el_amigo yep thats how it is solved in here. It usually becomes an issue of community. People are reporting crimes more and more now. But few years back (sometimes even now) ... people even compromised over murders with compensation decided by elders. But they wouldn't report it to police.

[@zesky6654]

That basically clan based justice. It's more or less the same everywhere that doesn't have proper policing.

[@archiem654]

@@zesky6654 yeah... point is its still going on in India. In here it becomes an issue of caste - community. Sometimes it works, as it doesnt let conflicts escalate and gives quick closure. But majority of the times, its power play. The community/family that is more influential wins.

[@VARMOT123]

@@zesky6654 not really . There isn't much crime in Asian countries per capita as many people think there is

[@user-vy5uy9fo8p]

Till date I have never heard of a bank robbery in India and most of our banks have little to no security.

[@maka6134]

When you type bank robbery in india the indiatimes alone gives you 800 results of bank robberies. They definitely happen a lot.

[@flyingdragon6275]

but Banks have been hacked and Defulted lol

[@user-vy5uy9fo8p]

@@maka6134 Its not robbery but thieves

[@maka6134]

What do you mean? Thieves commit robbery

[@srirampatnaik9164]

@@maka6134 I've heard of ATM robberies, but never a full on bank robbery.

[@rakeshbarman3486]

I didn't knew that a fist fights can count under real crime ,cuz here nobody goes to police for a fight

[@LeoLau-ip9bv]

well it's tecnicly asult

[@ad2050]

I'm an Indian living in Glasgow. Damn 😂 I love both India and Scotland so this was an interesting video. Having lived in Mumbai and Glasgow, I can 100% say that Mumbai is safer though.

[@shantanubbhosale]

after 26/11, the amount of police personnel here has gone up crazy, it could be the reason

[@ad2050]

@@shantanubbhosale Yeah that maybe a factor but generally after 2000s it's been safe... I think in the 90s Mumbai was much more dangerous.

[@salientsolution5436]

In all fairness though, Glasgow (outside the city centre) has always been on the edge of safe and unsafe. I'd say other Scottish cities are some of the safest in the world; Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee etc.

[@ad2050]

@@salientsolution5436 True. Edinburgh and Aberdeen are pretty safe 👍

[@takeshikovach5165]

That is completely a lie. You haven't lived in Glasgow. Crime in Mumbai is definitely higher. It gets reported, but doesn't show up in stats.

[@rahulpal2490]

We have dance battles in India, when ever we fight. So if you see a huge crowd following a horse with a man on top, understand. He is the reason for their anger.

[@death_parade]

WTF? What are you making people believe a marriage procession is lol?

[@shiva4774]

Guys don't belive him. He is misleading u into thinking a marriage procession as fight 😂

[@chromatron5230]

🤣🤣

[@vorrdegard2176]

As an Indian 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Your comment is gold

[@dekumarademosater2762]

@@shiva4774 perhaps, eventually?

[@RetroBerner]

Crime seems to thrive when people are desperate, but if despair is all you see all around you it may have less of an impact than if you see your peers doing well, while you are struggling.

[@fjb4932]

Criminals are Not desperate. Unless you mean desperate to avoid honest work ? . . . - - - . . .

[@TrippyTimesTwo]

@@fjb4932 I mean, a lot of criminals ARE desperate. If someone resorts to crime to survive (and I specify survive, not to further their own lot in life, but to get food for tomorrow) odds are they lack the prerequisites for honest work, be it education or transport or otherwise, and thus are forced into crime just to get by.

[@JohnAnderson-fj2rl]

No, desperation has very little to do with it. Genetic coding on the other hand...

[@JohnAnderson-fj2rl]

@13. Ghani Ziyad Sagiansyah Yes, some people are born with certain traits, (higher production of testosterone, lower than average iq, for instance) or lack of thereof (poor ability to defer gratification, high impulsivity, for example) that predispose them towards criminality. Environmental factors can exacerbate the predisposition, I don't deny that.

[@thatdamncrow9197]

@@JohnAnderson-fj2rl except IQ has long been proven unreliable And the childhood is much more important then any of the biological factors You just want to think of yourself as superior The reality is the majority of criminals had poor childhoods whether they lacked 1 parent or were neglected Others were abused physically, mentally, or even sexually There is a reason why serial killers were 25x more likely to have experienced psychological abuse as a child compared to the average population

[@pruthvirajshinde9991]

I was reading about R*pe rates and punishments the other day ( because a friend from the US told me that India is like the r*pe capital of the world ) and heres the math i did based on the data i gathered. USA reported around 145000 cases last year INDIA reported 31000 Now i considered how many cases are unreported USA : i found data suggesting between 35-60% unreported cases ( i am considering the 47.5 as it's right in the middle ) INDIA : data suggested between 70-85% , so 77.5% . Final values USA : 276190 cases theoretically. INDIA : 137777 cases theoretically . Do what you want with that information , it was just something i did cause i was bored and percentages seemed fun to solve at the time.

[@gamerrex5940]

Interesting.

[@RahulRajput-do6di]

If you calculate it furthur based on population (cases per 1 million), you will be surprised.

[@pruthvirajshinde9991]

@@RahulRajput-do6di yea the US only has about 330 million people , so close to 850 cases per million

[@cjfthistle]

Awful bold of you not to ship that maths box to us in Scotland, KEVIN * Shakes fist menacingly *

[@KingsleyPlays]

Loved your mind blow series back in the day. hope to see a comeback in the future!

[@bluestonecreeper720]

Absolutely love this series!

[@Khofax]

It’s always refreshing to hear the importance of admitting we don’t know, claiming that there is an absolute answer to anything is just looking for trouble especially in science

[@NiyumiGoldpetal]

I think the largest issue is both that we have too much and not enough data to actually figure things out. Biases, inaccurate data, not having the right variables, it's all still way too complex for humans to wrap their head around, and wrap it correctly. And even other issues like the types of people who run those countries could be a factor, as they don't see a problem and this don't make it known. There's also people who are likely to end up commiting crimes as a part of their nature (psychopaths, sociopaths) and others who might not commit crimes if we had enough help (people with anger issues). Too many variables, too many biases, and too much data all leads to tunnel visioning on one thing that might not even be important. And they might even be missing the forest for the tree.

[@horizonkage]

today, as writing this comment it's -4C in Estonia. we have enough data. it's to cold to fight in the street.

[@xSkyWeix]

I disagree. This is the nature of complex systems. Too much chaos make predicting beyond a certain point impossible. You can check chaos theory for more details.

[@emmafountain2059]

This is why we should just feed all of the data we have into an ai and let it give suggestions. No bias and it doesn’t get tunnel visioned! (Im only half joking)

[@me3333]

As a Hoosier (Lives in Indiana) I can tell you that a lot of crime here doesn't get reported. More often than not the police make things worse for both parties so unless it's murder or something else super serious it's almost always better to leave them out of it and figure it out on your own. The thing to remember is that most of the time the police are there to make a report, it's not like they can prevent a crime that's already happened.

[@notyourmangoladka]

I thought it was only Indian thought process!!

[@alexanderphilip1809]

@@notyourmangoladka its a conservative approach in societies with dysfunctional judicial and/or law enforcement systems. In India as well as apparently Indiana.

[@rushikeshsarap1604]

So saying that India is not a safe location for women to travel, is false too right? Cause the international media has consistently commented on India in a negative way due to these statistics.

[@photosynth359]

It is, unfortunately that kind of news sells in the west because it feeds into the inherent biases of the western society and makes the average joe feel good about themselves. To them it reads "savage brown man country is predatory, if only they were intelligent enough to be like us"

[@sliwka621]

​@@photosynth359So the truth sells? Nice self-own.

[@mauryanempire7503]

Not due to statistics as statistics show opposite result

[@BicycleFunk]

Solid video Kevin! Knowing that you don't know is the most important knowledge one can have.

[@lewisw1587]

The crime mathematics videos you are making are so good!

[@arnavcarpenter4063]

In India, the requirements are huge, but the resources are scares, thus, we have enough of nothing, we NEED more of everything. Therefore, our judiciary and police is overworked, they don't have time for things like a person slapped another. Actually people don't even go to the police for such things.

[@MikeSimoneLV]

I love how you manage to make learning about statistics enjoyable and consumable. Thank you for all that you do!

[@aviralsood8141]

It is honestly scary knowing how much of the public's thoughts can be influenced by a handful of reporters overplaying the shaky results of an amiguous scientific paper. This is where it is so important for there to be science communicators in the world who act as a bridge between the research and the public.

[@abbiearcher4716]

Scotland has a large Indian community. Are Scottish Indians basically the Hardest Hardmen on Earth?

[@MuzikBike]

If so I'm an outlier

[@TargetRenegade]

No such thing as a 'Scottish Indian'. The only true Scots are White.

[@horizonkage]

no it really doesn't. Scotland is over 99% white.

[@robbofastora]

@@TargetRenegade I'm Scottish. If you're born in Scotland, you're Scottish. People of Indian descent who were born here, are also Scottish and are welcome here.

[@TargetRenegade]

@@robbofastora lol. No. A dog born in a stable doesn't make it a horse.

[@pill0ck318]

"Most of our measurements are wrong" Immediately hit the like button. Was literally the first thing I learned at university

[@jdblack7355]

And then they proceeded to tell you a bunch of lies lol jk hope your day is well.

[@HughGort]

My condolences.

[@prizrak-br3332]

@@jdblack7355 Depending on where he attended university this is probably true.

[@DoglinsShadow]

Excellent video! Loving this math series where you teach us practical application and mistakes of math. So fascinating and useful to apply.

[@bruinflight1]

Kevin, you are doing the most important work on youtube today. Thank you.

[@necropolis6052]

" Now we measure everything and most of our measurement is wrong ", well that feels optimistic 😅

[@alibobdagreat2834]

I’m Scottish and I can confirm

[@_ruted]

I'm Indian and I can confirm

[@jakemarshall360]

Say that again and I'll batter you! Jks

[@prakhar9473]

Im scotish indian and i unconfirm

[@benjaminanderson1014]

I'm neither Scottish nor Indian and I reconfirm

[@theguywhostoleyourcookies]

I'm Confirm and I can scottish

[@sicko_the_ew]

The police return the kind of statistics that make them look as good as possible. Or corrupt police stations do. I've attended a community policing forum in a small town in which the crime was completely out of control (the extreme case being 15 men armed with military assault rifles attacking a large holiday resort full of kids with laptops and phones, and spending a long enough time there - in broad daylight - to collect most of these), and being told by the officer designated to attend the meeting that the station had a problem with not being allocated vehicles "because it was a low crime area". According to the statistics they reported. Only. Another incident I recall was a cash in transit hijacking between towns, where the gang set up a road block at the site where they were robbing the van, and went from car to car collecting wallets and phones. It was common for those committing e.g. home invasions to take their time (time enough to try out a bit of sadism on the people whose homes were being invaded, often.) There was a guy who pulled up at the parking lot of a shopping centre, at night, at a busy pub (with things like fast food outlets next door), and someone just walked up to his door, using a shoot first, don't ask questions later approach. Shot him dead at point blank range. Dragged out his body, threw it on the ground. Drove off. Low crime area. I remember hearing lots of automatic fire just across the main road one night. Turns out it was an ambush of some tourists coming home from a restaurant meal. Log in the road, and they decided to rather try to just drive over it. They succeeded, and then the perps opened up on auto. Security company got there before the police (if the police even got there at all). The rumours were that some of the gangs were run by policemen. Maybe that was just drawing too many conclusions from the general police inaction in the area. My brother actually ended up in a bit of a "firing in the dark firefight" one night. Thugs tried to smash their way into the cottage of two women. These locked themselves into the kitchen, called for help, and my brother responded wearing just his underpants. Thugs shot at him, he shot at them. Wife was on the phone to the cops. Cops said they could "only respond to urgent calls". She put the receiver out the window to better pick up the sound of the shooting. To their credit, after that they sent a van. It's a ten minute journey. They took half an hour. Perps were gone by the time they got there. So my brother asks them to bring in the dog unit. Hot trail. Perfect chance to track them down. But "they can only be spared for serious cases" ... (And maybe can't be spared to hunt down off duty policemen moonlighting for the mob.) They eventually realized they would have to sort out the crime problem themselves. It really is a low crime area, now. (It just took a bit of patrolling and responding, and one or two successful apprehensions to put a stop to the crime. Not something you really want to do at the end of a day's work, but what can you do if the police aren't interested, and the politicians are not interested in making them be interested?) Anyway, there's a rather pathological case of the crime stats being a lie. One thing that's a reasonably good measure of at least the violent crime side of things is the murder rate. Its difficult to hide the murders (there are inquests for unnatural deaths, so it's not just a police officer's call what to describe the crime as.) Nationally we (South Africa) have unfortunately returned to an increasing murder rate. I'm told it's gone up to 70 people murdered every day, again. You could call it a result of poverty if you like, but then that leaves open the question of why Malawi (so much poorer) is so much less violent. Part of it is gangster politicians. My mother's municipal ward had to have a reelection after their new counsellor was murdered the other day, and apparently there's been a resurgence of these cases. Part of it is just the police not doing their job, too.

[@SgtSupaman]

When a metric becomes a goal, it ceases to be a good metric.

[@phanomtaxskibididoodoo]

South Africa... say no more literally every other african country has lower crime rates than South Africa.

[@opaio9]

Fantastic Series!

[@ShadowSlith789]

Damn we really do be living in a society

[@ericward284]

Ya, I think people are just going to turn this video into "any crime statistic I don't like is absolutely untrue!"

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

As opposed to "Any crime statistic I do like is absolutely true."

[@zesky6654]

@@skeetsmcgrew3282 The former is better by a long mile.

[@e1lg537]

Thye first study mentioned actually compared the trend of crime rate over a period of time. While I agree with you on the comparisons based on singular probabilities, trend comparisons are known to be extremely accurate when it comes to correlation. Many analysts agree that increased levels of lead was actually a very major factor in deciding the trend that crime rate followed the last few decades.

[@cx24venezuela]

Maybe lead don't affect crime. But there are better numbers about how it affect the health

[@archkral]

Amazing video! Thank you for making it :)

[@krishna.vineet]

For India, the factor "Culture" is also in presence

[@MadhusudanSinha]

Between Veritasium and Vsause2, I am confused if the lead caused those crimes or not. Both of their arguments are convincing.

[@chri-k]

Vsauce2 did technically not support either theory

[@Alkis05]

@@chri-k You will never find a scientist saying that lead doesn't lead to rise in criminal indicators. You can't prove a negative. The burden to prove that lead causes rise in crime is on those that makes the assertion. By saying that no correlation can be found, Kevin is saying that those who made the assertion didn't meet their burden of proof. That the evidence doesn't point to it being a thing.

[@RiannaPeterson]

?

[@codebitcookie8053]

One of your best videos. Keep it up!

[@leorohrba8623]

Would love to get the math box down here in Brazil!

[@sauhaardcaushic782]

It bothers me why everytime we go in real depth of something we're always left with "we know nothing". The more deep you go the more far away the bottom seems to be. Do you have any thought on this?

[@billlong9313]

For what it's worth, I found plenty of food for thought in a book published in 2017: "The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone" by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach.

[@HABA300]

Love the ending!!

[@bryangoodwin6579]

I’m 38 years old and I have been to counseling 4 times in my whole life. All those therapy sessions taught me was to look at myself and ask why whatever was happening is happening. And every time I would dig deep enough and find that reason.

[@dhillaz]

Did it cause you to commit more crimes than your un-counseled counterpart of same age, IQ and social status?

[@anentiresleeveoforeos2087]

you are mentally ill because you drink tap water and estrogen milk

[@Bundpataka]

@@dhillaz we don’t know what type of counseling the kids got, or if it was even a statistical fluke. The whole point of the video is how we can’t draw strong social conclusions from statistical data many times

[@bryangoodwin6579]

@@dhillaz I don't have that data. Besides, my point is people know the reason they do the things they do if they look back far enough.

[@tubester358]

@@bryangoodwin6579 agreed, but usually it takes a specific set of questions to lead you to those answers and I suppose that's what therapists should be good at, but I fear you can also easily gaslight people that way if they believe it follows a clear line of logic. E.g. a therapist could manipulate a whole group of people to believing something about their nature that they otherwise wouldn't think about and cause them to act a certain way.

[@Strash_]

heh....Always a pleasure to see my country of Estonia get mentioned or compared ^^

[@cjfthistle]

I can tell you that Scotland thinks you’re cool! Every time I go to a conference about my job, we get told how Estonia is better than us 😂

[@Strash_]

@@cjfthistle huh...cool.... Well dont you worry Estonians thinks Scotland is cool! My sisters literally been dating a scotsman for an year now xD

[@shiva4774]

I don't even know where ur country is. 🙁

[@jirachi-wishmaker9242]

@@shiva4774 Eastern Europe

[@devilback8871]

I had always thought that these surveys dont show the reality on the ground

[@xiaohuli27]

One of the problems with scotland is that theres almost no consequence for those who assault others. I was assaulted by 2 people in Edinburgh years ago with 5+ witnesses and both assaulters got community service which they managed to get out of.

[@retrogiftsuk4812]

Really sorry to hear that. I think one of the problems is that violence is often seen as OK from a young age. Mothers will let boys fight ("scrap") as long as no-one gets hurt (and no girl gets hit). "Boys will be boys" they say (and "don't hit girls" or "don't hit your sister"). You have to teach children not to lie and to share (children naturally lie and snatch toys from each other). When parents don't have a zero tolerance to violence is it a surprise that kids grow up using violence to deal with their emotions and grievances.

[@popcornsniper]

@@retrogiftsuk4812 Give them cold showers once they get 5 years old. To girls as well. I was shocked at how violent british people are.

[@ADITYAKUMAR-mb5ht]

I am 26 year old and i have never ever seen two strangers are fighting with punches ...but there is a very popular statement in india that if two womens (public transport) have sitted very close to each other for more than 30 minutes than it will ve very very rare that they will not start talking 😅, Share of punches usually takes place with known persons like between between brothers or friend's, But small verbal war is very common in india (and i don't think peoples in india take it seriously and if you are a foreigner than you need to know this fact

[@incom6897]

I see many people abusing each other but i also not see fighing people

[@Regularcael]

i havent watched one of your vids in a while, this is a good one

[@danhonks6264]

This is an excellent video, Kevin

[@jorgecoelho4051]

I feel robbed of reason and time after this...

[@rijulduggal5584]

3:19 : do you know or have children? me : i AM the child

[@jaysnehpandey7089]

For real

[@jasper7658]

The reason Estonian alcohol consumption is that high, is because alot of Finnish people, who on average earn much more than Estonians, come to Estonia to buy cheap alcohol in mass. Although im not denying the fact that Estonians drink more alcohol than healthy.

[@NickRoman]

And so the number they are trying to understand itself is wrong because of all of these complications that people don't understand.

[@creekchub9714]

That math box looks awesome, I wish I had that when I was a kid

[@djphlange]

why is it so hard to imagine that scots are rougher, harsher and tend to settle things with fists ? LOL it would be the same with the irish like when i picture England/UK, thats what i imagine , a lot of it is culture. there isnt much of a fighting culture in india, like street fist fighting, alcohol plays a part but not the leading role

[@haneylondhe6697]

In India Successful criminal is in politics and fail criminal is in jail

[@Lerner7]

भारत में पोलिस और कोर्ट के चक्करों में कोई नही पड़ना चाहता इसलिए यहां जिसके पास जितनी पावर हे उसकी ही धाक रहती है।

[@abhyudayanerwat8558]

++this. Criminal Justice system is a major factor to be incorporated in these studies.

[@user-hq8wm8giyujcg]

if u want the crimes to be low, encourage individualistic education and independence

[@WWIflyingace62]

I want to see a video on gun crime statistics and how they are manipulated to be either for or against gun control. Does gun control prevent violent shootings? Do loose gun laws engender more shootings?

[@Bundpataka]

The problem with US gun control laws is we don’t know how effective they can actually be, because in the US, they’re almost all at local levels, so anyone could leave a strict jurisdiction and get a gun in a lax jurisdiction. This has led to stuff like Chicago having strict gun control laws, but gang members being able to get illegal guns extremely easily, and thus commit gun violence

[@nickchavez720]

Does gun control inherently prevent gun control, not necessarily as there are pleanty of examples in the US where gun control is high but there is high gun crime still high as well. Like wise there there are places where gun control is loose but gun crime is low. And where you point to where gun crime is low and there is high gun control they were areas where gun crime was never that high to begin with. Then we can complicate it further by breaking down how criminals get guns, and most reported info suggests they were obtained illegally. So if we are trying to say that gun control has a direct affect on gun crime there is no data that really supports that.

[@jirachi-wishmaker9242]

Should've included iceland(where murderer, pdf files gets their 'honor restrored' , can pursue their dreams of becoming doctor, lawyer,etc.) Finland(one of the nation with least number of its citizens being jailed) Denmark with it 'life' imprisonment (of 12 yrs)

[@danialrafid]

It's not gonna get them more immigrants, if that's the point of the 'lax laws

[@hoovi1112]

input_1 = input("Insert a number here ----> ").lower() input_2 = input("Insert a number here ----> ").lower() print("The result when adding is..", float(input_1) + float(input_2)) print("The result when subtracting is..", float(input_1) - float(input_2)) print("The result when multiplying is..", float(input_1) * float(input_2)) print("The result when dividing is..", float(input_1) / float(input_2))

[@undefined6947]

The only way to learn on purpose is by first accepting that you don't yet know. Seems obvious, but really it's a game changer when unrelentingly applying it to everything you can.

[@DetectiveJones]

Crime stats are wild, I was looking at some with my friend and found out that are rather peaceful town we've lived in for most of our lives, had more crime rate than many parts of Brazil, the middle east, and certain parts of Africa, notorious cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York, basically where the crime rate is actually high.

[@greebfewatani]

I don't know about other places you mentioned but middle east away from politically war torn regions is not that scary for the residents. The murder rate is pretty low too due to social restrains. For petty crimes and assaults, undereporting maybe the reason for the misleading data.

[@pranavsetpal]

I loved the 'Indians handle fist-shaking problems themselves" line, lmao

[@Imperfiction]

Once again a fantastic video. Does anyone know the outro song?

[@Exhora]

I will be waiting for the math box to beade available to Brazil. This would be great to be used on classes.

[@Daniel-vu7pi]

This video is just a great reminder that correlation does not equal causation. Science isn't about simply observing and somehow "extracting" knowledge from observation; that's inductivism and it's false. Science is about explanation; an account of what is out there in reality, how it behaves and how it interacts with other stuff. This is true not just of mathematics and the physical sciences, but of all scientific inquiry in general and holds no matter what you're studying. Unless you're actually testing (i.e. trying to falsify) an idea/hypothesis, making an observation is useless. Anyone interested should read David Deutsch's "The Beginning of Infinity" =)

[@emypetcu]

Well, Willy is more violent than Apu ... Also you just made an enemy for life

[@abdelrhmanhashem3256]

dude i was waiting for this episode.

[@hippocampussashimi7819]

This video was a good reminder to get back to reading "Seeing Like a State" and recommend it to others here, I guess? A different focus than this video though, more on the value of collecting such statistics and the effects societal planners have by desiring and insisting upon such statistics, I suppose.

[@neeld66]

Police is very corrupt in India and they wouldn't even register a complaint for things they consider petty. Many times people with genuines grievances have to go to war with police just to get them to register a complaint. Most matters are solved by people themselves. It's one of the reasons the stats are so low. But I also know that India is not anymore dangerous to live in than any average large sized country. Overall, the people are very kind and peaceful.

[@VARMOT123]

Not anymore corrupt than vast majority of the countries . Police are pretty corrupt in most countries

[@neeld66]

@@VARMOT123 can't disagree

[@yugmathakkar4023]

It's not even about corruption to be fair. We have a very understaffed, underpaid and overworked police force and they would rather you settle non-serious issues like regular assault among yourselves, because they have a billion more violent crimes to focus on. We need more police force with a decent salary for this to stop.

[@incom6897]

I think indian police most stereotypical in world because of bollywood

[@ashishtiwari1912]

Crime underreporting happens in most countries and there is no way to track each and every crime. Here in India, the police doesn't registers the complaint that easily. I would say corruption is a big problem among the police here. For a country as big as ours with such a big population, I think it is reasonably safe to live here except few regions that have a higher average crime rate than the rest of the country. In my 35+ years, I haven't seen people in rough street fights or anything. Some arguments and that is all about it.

[@movielessons7103]

7:17 yes

[@vctrsigma]

And not knowing is half the battle!!

[@---ox1lg]

Despite

[@Nicole-pt4bx]

WHOA!! What a video!! Kevin, I hadn't seen you videos in a while but I'm SO GLAD I clicked this one! I feel as if my brain rebooted, I feel like we might communicate in a very similar way internally so the way you led the rabbit hole felt really organic and well paced. Playlisting this and sharing on all my circles 😊

[@Gabriel2.0]

I studied statistics as a part of my engineering diploma and imediately I've realised that the entire field is fundamently impossible to trust. I can come with conclusive and supporting data for any conclusion I want to have and for any point I want to prove. which I actually did to prove my teacher wrong - with stats about the field of statistics.

[@dijjidog]

I really wish this had more views for multiple reasons.

[@DuchessandHammer]

They are great statistics for passing laws and policies especially when those pushing the policies know they are not entirely true.

[@Anonymimus]

You really should make follow-up video with @Veritasium on this one, I think. As he recently made a video where he talked about how lead was responsible for causing more crimes.

[@Priapos93]

Well stacked!

[@EXPLORADVEN]

👌👌👌 Knowing that we don't know is the ONLY place to start knowing. Otherwise Knowing just ends & ONLY rotting starts.

[@adamplace1414]

I'm more and more convinced that sociologists just make it up as they go. Trying to ascribe a reason to group behavior that's in fact driven by individual motivations seems foolhardy.

[@Bundpataka]

Individual motivations are molded by societal conditions

[@Eoin-B]

It's also pretty hard to go to prison here, so writing up assaults would be easy seeing as you know your not ruining people's lives and just giving official cautions could contribute to it too (you can have loads of them). Also when pubs close (and on the main routes back to council estates) the police always wait outside the popular spots each night. So maybe the police pre emptivly waiting outside most spots where fights start causes this. Just extra two theories. I don't know estonia, but I do know Lituania (also an ex-soviet close neighbor with an even higher drinking rate). They mostly consume alcohol in the estates, so the drinking stays in the tower block, I never saw near the same amount of people exit onto the streets at once at night as I did in Scotland. - Both generalizations come from time spent with friends in social housing, statistically the most probable to fight after a night of drinking (in the UK anyway) and of course only my observation. Both counties are heavy social drinkers but I found Scots more pour in and out of pubs and Lutuanians stay in their blocks.

[@Vitrolin2408]

Worth injecting: As an Australian; as I'm sure many of non-Australians might also notice or agree with; An Assault vs a fight are not necessarily the same thing. Australians (almost exclusively men) have a sort of social contract with eachother regarding physical attacks where if both parties agree to settle 'things' with fists; it'll get settled with fists; and as an agreed form of dispute resolution; the authorities are not required to be informed or involved. While some could argue this qualifies as an assault; battery, a public brawl; disturbing the peace; and so forth; public perception itself is what keeps this from just defaulting to being an assault that has the locals refer to as an assault. Same way when a Football player; Hockey player; Boxer; so on; gets into a fight; its not an assault; charges are not filed; We acknowledge that if a punch connects with someone it is battery; but we all understand that when it happens in a boxing ring, a field; or rink; the perception of "assault" becomes debatable; or dismissed entirely. You could argue that people who watch contact sports are less likely to call the police for being assaulted than someone who doesn't watch any kind of sport might. Doesn't change the fact that a dictionary definition of assault took place; its arguing the perception of what qualifies as an assault; to the person or people who would qualify it as such.

[@dd-uf9nw]

How it works in india i will give an example here- There was a new neighbour in our locality and he was building his house(in rural india buying well furnished houses is still not a norm) and after some day he started furthering his house's boundary to the road and my father confronted him that you can't build anything on public property so he said you can do it too, nobody is stoping you. My father clearly told me that "if he(neighbour) don't stop just Demolish the boundary wall and pillars with a hammer" . Then someone suggested my father to call the police instead of doing it by yourself. The police came after some hours that they suggested my father and the neighbour that you two guys are educated and smart, instead of filing FIR(first information report) you can settle this by talking to each other. By luck my father and neighbour's brother were school mates and at the end both party decided that neighbor wouldn't futher his house's boundary but can stretch few inches of his house's terrace further. Edit: please don't mind grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.