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Joe Friday, what you're doing is great. Is there any way you can email me so we can discuss the limits of data, especially in DC?

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One thing that strikes me is the trailing five year cost of the homicide branch in absolute dollar terms. $21M per year is just not that much money. Why aren't we spending much more on this critical service?

Wonder what the comparable figure over that period is in Boston, too.

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Read this: https://jasher.substack.com/p/crime-in-2023-murder-plummeted-violent Murder has decreased dramatically almost everywhere except in DC. Why did murder go up? We don't know. Why did murder go down? We don't know. The examples you give are all correlations not causations. My guess is just as proven as yours and mine is that DC does virtually nothing for teens and young adults who are at risk of becoming violent criminals. Maybe do something instead of nothing?

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Another aspect of detective work is going after the "infrastructure" of retail level crime, the markets for te stolen good and suppliers of inputs like guns.

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There’s also the element of morale for police officers.

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