The Wire: Fix The Crime Statistics...or...
Why Hacker News recommends it
Used as a shorthand illustration of juking the stats and Goodhart-style metric gaming.
What it is
A two-minute scene from The Wire in which Baltimore police brass pressure subordinates to fix the crime statistics. It dramatizes how metrics and incentives distort policing.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2015 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Cites nrao123 · 2015-04 · on “David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish”
David Simon is a national treasure. The Wire had lots of scenes on how metrics & incentives screwed up Baltimore city. Here is a great scene talking about metrics/stats from The Wire - [this video] Article also refers to Martin Malley's ambition to be Maryland's governor that really screwed up the incentives and cooking of the books. "How do you reward cops? Two ways: promotion and cash. That's what rewards a cop. If you want to pay overtime pay for having police fill the jails with loitering arrests or simple drug possession or failure to yield, if you want to spend your municipal treasure rewarding that, well the cop who’s going to court 7 or 8 days a month — and court is always overtime pay —
Cites FullMtlAlcoholc · 2016-11 · on “How an accused drug dealer revealed Jacksonville's facial recognition network”
> No, they generally do the latter, and generally well. Minor quibble, but I don't find a 50% clearance rate on murders to be good. [0] I also don't put much faith in the accuracy of many (most) police departments numbers as they "Juke the Stats" [1] [0] [LINK] [1] [this video]
Cites creakingstairs · 2022-02 · on “Man found guilty of ‘grossly offensive’ tweet”
> Now watch governments do the same. They've already been doing that for ages: crime rate, gdp, employment, inflation. Here is a clip from my favourite show that highlights this: [this video]