Do we underestimate the cost of crime?: "
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“Bearded and soft-spoken, [Bill] James is among the most stoic people I’ve ever met,” writes Chuck Klosterman. “At no point did he seem interested, bored, happy, or annoyed. I think he might have laughed once, but I wouldn’t testify to that in court.”
James is the founder of Sabermetrics, the numbers-driven analysis of baseball that Michael Lewis immortalized in “Moneyball.” He just released a book about crime. Klosterman is a popular essayist and cultural critic. Their whole interview is worth reading. I particularly liked this exchange:
As a society, do we overestimate or underestimate the importance of crime in day-to-day life?
We underestimate it, because it’s our intent to underestimate it. We only deal with it indirectly. We all do so many things to avoid being the victims of crime that we no longer see those things, so we don’t see the cost of it. Just finding a safe place for us to have this conversation, for example — we needed a quiet place, but before that, we needed to find a safe place. A hotel lobby is what it is because of the level of security. I’ve checked out of this hotel, but I’m still sitting here in the third-floor lobby, because it’s safe. When you buy something, it’s wrapped in seven layers of packaging in order to make it harder to steal.
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