Monthly Archives: August 2010

Predicting future crimes

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Professor Richard Berk from the University of Pennsylvania has developed software that predicts which criminals on probation or parole will commit future crimes. His software is already being used in Baltimore and Philadelphia and soon will be used in Washington, D.C.

Here is a quick description of how the algorithm was developed:

Beginning several years ago, the researchers assembled a dataset of more than 60,000 various crimes, including homicides. Using an algorithm they developed, they found a subset of people much more likely to commit homicide when paroled or probated. Instead of finding one murderer in 100, the UPenn researchers could identify eight future murderers out of 100.

Berk’s software examines roughly two dozen variables, from criminal record to geographic location. The type of crime, and more importantly, the age at which that crime was committed, were two of the most predictive variables.

Of course, there could be some problems with this:

But Berk’s scientific answer leaves policymakers with difficult questions, said Bushway. By labeling one group of people as high risk, and monitoring them with increased vigilance, there should be fewer murders, which the potential victims should be happy about.

It also means that those high-risk individuals will be monitored more aggressively. For inmate rights advocates, that is tantamount to harassment, “punishing people who, most likely, will not commit a crime in the future,” said Bushway.

“It comes down to a question of whether you would rather make these errors or those errors,” said Bushway.

I would be curious to see reports on the effectiveness of this software over time. And determining whether this software is effective in areas like reducing crime would present some interesting measurement issues.

Zombies, mindless consumerism, and a $165,000 settlement

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This story has been making the Internet rounds in recent days. Here are some of the details regarding street theater that turned into arrests for possessing weapons of mass destruction:

The payout [$165,000], approved by the City Council on Friday, settles a federal lawsuit the seven filed after they were arrested and jailed for two days for dressing up like zombies in downtown Minneapolis on July 22, 2006, to protest “mindless” consumerism.

When arrested at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 6th Street N., most of them had thick white powder and fake blood on their faces and dark makeup around their eyes. They were walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated “weapons of mass destruction.”

However, they were never charged with any crime…

“I feel great that the city is being held accountable for the actions of their police,” said Raphi Rechitsky, 27, of Minneapolis, one of the seven zombies, who said he and his friends were performing street theater when they were arrested. He is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota.

While the actions of the police seem overblown, I’m curious to know about the street theater itself: was it comprised of all graduate students? All sociology students? How exactly were the zombies protesting “mindless consumerism”? Is this part of a research project?

Teachers losing jobs over Facebook; some examples

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has some examples of teachers losing their jobs because of certain Facebook posts.

Some of the examples are quite egregious and I find it hard to believe some of them had no qualms about posting them in the first place. While a few of the teachers suggest that information was intended to be kept private and available only to friends, it pays off to be safe and just not post messages like these at all.

Quick Review: The Stepford Wives (2004)

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Not too long ago, I watched and reviewed the original Stepford Wives film (made in 1975). Due to some of the slow pacing of the original, I recently watched the newer version (made in 2004) to see how it compared. Some quick thoughts:

1. The newer version is made to fit modern times: the main character, Joanna Eberhart (played by Nicole Kidman),  is a reality TV maven, the character of the husband (Walter, played by Matthew Broderick) is developed more, and the ending has a twist that is meant to demonstrate the power of love over rigid gender ideologies.

2. The suburban critique is similar: suburbs promote gender stereotypes that need to be challenged.

3. On one hand, I could see why the makers thought a remake was needed. The original film looks like a film from the mid 1970s: the pacing is slow, the camera shots are clunky, and the ending is perhaps unsatisfying since the main character doesn’t resolve her issues with Stepford. The newer film is snappier, more colorful, and packs more in. On the other hand, the remake suffers from its own issues: a storyline that seems like it tries too hard to be modern, rapidly shifting emotional moods (particular between Joanna and Walter who alternate between barely seeing each other and having intimate conversations), and an ending that doesn’t have the same payoff as the original. The character Joanna seems thin; the original spent more time showing the audience her interests, her passions, and her friendships. The new film doesn’t have time for this.

Overall, this film is uneven though more palatable to modern viewers. In the end, the move to include more of a love story between Joanna and Walter takes away from some of the biting suburban criticism of the original.

(This movie was not well-received by critics: it is only 27% fresh, 43 out of 162 reviews, at RottenTomatoes.com.)

A home may no longer be a profitable investment

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The housing crisis in America has prompted a number of commentators to again examine what it means to own a home. A number of sources I have read recently have suggested there was a large shift regarding American homes toward the end of the 20th century: people saw homes less as places to live and have a good life and instead viewed a home as an important investment from which they could continuously generate profits.

A New York Times article makes this argument as well, saying “many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg.”

If this is true, it could have profound impacts on community life. Perhaps owners will stay in homes longer, spending more money on their current homes while also maintaining local social relationships for longer periods. Perhaps the housing sector of the economy (everything from manufacturers to developers to real estate agents) will decline in importance to other sectors.

h/t Instapundit

The real Trader Joe’s

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An interesting story at CNNMoney.com goes behind the scenes at Trader Joe’s. This trendy grocery store certainly has its fans; I had one friend in graduate school who seemed willing at times to drive 2 or 3 hours to shop at one.

Some of the details about the company:

Few customers realize the chain is owned by Germany’s ultra-private Albrecht family, the people behind the Aldi Nord supermarket empire. (A different branch of the family controls Aldi Süd, parent of the U.S. Aldi grocery chain.) Famous in Germany for not talking to the press, the Albrechts have passed their tightlipped ways on to their U.S. business: Trader Joe’s and its CEO, Dan Bane, declined repeated requests to speak to Fortune, and the company has never participated in a major story about its business operations.

Some of that may be because Trader Joe’s business tactics are often very much at odds with its image as the funky shop around the corner that sources its wares from local farms and food artisans. Sometimes it does, but big, well-known companies also make many of Trader Joe’s products. Those Trader Joe’s pita chips? Made by Stacy’s, a division of PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay. On the East Coast much of its yogurt is supplied by Danone’s Stonyfield Farm. And finicky foodies probably don’t like to think about how Trader Joe’s scale enables the chain to sell a pound of organic lemons for $2.

Companies are often made or broken based on their image and it sounds like Trader Joe’s want to keep a low corporate profile while building upon its popular name.

A question: would the store’s loyal customers not shop there any longer if they knew where the food really came from? Or knew more about what happened behind the scenes?

From star to persona non grata

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The Tiger Woods saga is a reminder that fame and success can be fleeting: one can go from the toast of the world to a pariah pretty quickly.

Chicago’s version of this may be the tale of Sammy Sosa. Sosa’s story is remarkable: he grew up very poor, came to town as a skinny White Sox outfielder, was traded to the Cubs and became a prodigious home run hitter, and then quickly disappeared and according to one commentator “now is persona non grata in the entire city.”

As a profile in Chicago Magazine suggests, Sosa helped run himself out of town:

Sosa’s transformation from Chicago icon to pariah has a lot to do with the controversies that tarnished his image: his use of a corked bat in 2003; his walkout during the last game of the 2004 season; and his years of self-indulgent behavior, which exasperated teammates and management. Any discussion of Sosa’s perceived failings must also, of course, include the elephant in the locker room: the suspicion that steroids helped fuel his career total of 609 home runs, the sixth highest in major-league history.

In retrospect, some of these issues seem easy to spot – even the most ardent Cubs fan today can see some of the troubles Sosa brought. His part in the lingering steroids scandal, which will take years to sort out as voters consider more players for the Hall of Fame, is damaging.

Yet, at the same time, when times were good with Sammy, they were good:

For years he and the organization had formed a spectacularly successful theatrical partnership, staging the Sammy Show at sun-drenched, beer-sozzled Wrigley Field. If the production resembled home run derby more than actual baseball, that was OK—the show was a smash, and the team was happy to count the box office receipts that poured in.

The magnetic Sosa seemed born to play the role of Slammin’ Sammy, and the Cubs’ marketing muscle helped spread the image of a carefree and cuddly hero who hopped when he hit home runs, tapped his heart to show his love for his adoring fans, and blew kisses to the TV cameras. If the truth was more complicated—if the star could be a maddeningly self-absorbed diva offstage—that was OK as long as the baseballs kept flying out of Wrigley Field. And if he sprouted muscles like Popeye after an epic spinach bender, apparently that was OK, too, provided that the turnstiles at Wrigley Field kept spinning.

As the profile notes, even as the Cubs languished during some years, Sosa was the baseball show for numerous summers.

So now Sosa languishes in some odd celebrity limbo like Woods: once revered, they both have shown a more frail human side, and have not yet recovered. I think both of them could regain some measure of standing: Woods by winning again and Sosa perhaps coming clean about steroids or offering apologies to his teammates. But they may never again reach the peaks of fame they once knew. While we haven’t heard Woods comment on how this feels to him, it sounds like Sosa is still struggling with this lesser status.

German copyright > English copyright?

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Der Spiegel has posted a summary of the work of economic historian Eckhard Höffner (see here for one of Höffner’s presentations).  As Der Spiegel summarizes Höffner’s question, “Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law?”  Höffner argues that England’s draconian 19th century copyright laws resulted in a “chronically weak book market that caused England, the colonial power,to fritter away its head start within the span of a century, while the underdeveloped agrarian state of Germany caught up rapidly, becoming an equally developed industrial nation by 1900.”

As Matthew Lasar points out in his analysis for Wired, however, Höffner’s thesis is vulnerable to correlation vs. causation objections.  For one thing, many European countries (and their colonies) had growth outpacing England’s during this time period, and many of these countries also had strong copyright laws.

I find one of Lasar’s other objections to Höffner’s thesis less persuasive:

…when we put all the legal and economic comparisons aside, we have to ask how much the United Kingdom really suffered from its allegedly stultifying copyright rules. Sure, the nation’s economic growth declined compared to Germany and the US, but it certainly turned out some great literature; we’re still talking about the country of Charles Dickens, John Stewart Mill, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

And don’t forget that this is the nation whose scientists discovered the electron and the precise behavior of heat, explained the nervous system, electromagnetic laws, and the true nature of evolution, and whose inventors pioneered modern steel, the telegraph, the suspension bridge, and (over a century later) the theory of Internet packet switching as it is widely understood today.

I’d be curious to hear what you think.

Quick Review: The Diary of a Wimpy Kid

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Two reasons I watched this movie: I’ve read the books the movie is based on and it was free at the library. Two quick thoughts on the film:

1. The books are much better. There was a clever character to the books whereas the movie was just another fairly formulaic kids movie. The books often made me laugh out loud while the movie did not.

2. There is a genre of high school movies – this could be considered “high school movie lite.” It had similar themes including what it means to be cool and dealing with family members and featured plenty of pop/rock music. There were typical characters including the overly-machismo gym teacher and the older goons. If you have seen an average middle school movie, you’ll feel like you’ve seen most of this movie before. It just so happened that the main characters were younger.

Overall: read the books for the real Greg Heffley.

(The film got mixed reviews from critics: it is 53% fresh, 40 fresh out of 75 reviews, at RottenTomatoes.com.)

Baseball as primitive religious ritual

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One common means that sociologists use to gain perspective on social phenomena is to consider what an alien might observe and conclude if they happened to see human social life. Hampton Stevens takes a similar tack at theAtlantic.com to report on baseball as a primitive religious ritual:

Essentially, the religion of baseball is based on the hurling of a small, white orb that represents the sins of believers, and the attempt to expiate those sins by the ritualized touching of three small white squares. Two bands of warrior-priests wage an intricate, highly symbolic battle to see who can cleanse the most of their followers’ sins.

Each sect has a high priest. He stands elevated atop a circular mound at the very heart of the temple, the sanctum sanctorum of, beneath which are buried his ancestors and martyrs to the faith. Hurling the white sphere, he thus symbolically accuses the entire community of some great wrongdoing, challenging them to defend themselves and their sacred honor.

A cleric from the opposing clan does just that. He holds a weapon, offering a defense by trying to strike the orb in the hopes of being allowed to progress through the series of small white squares and therefore disprove the accusation.

While this may seem like a silly essay, it has value:

1. It is always useful to be reminded how others view practices that we think of as “normal.” Whether the others are aliens or people from different cultures, it is a reminder that what is obvious to us may not be obvious to others. Indeed, social life is made of up of norms and rules that one must learn starting at a young age.

2. Sporting events can be thought of on religious terms. While I have joked that being a Cubs fan is almost like having another religion because of the amount of faith it requires, sports in American society can be analyzed as “functional religion.” Particularly with an event like the Super Bowl, the amount of attention, time, and money spent on sports is astounding. We gather in stadiums/”hallowed grounds” to lustily cheer on our “good” team versus the “evil” team from another place. We might even go so far as to suggest that it may be possible that more Americans pay more attention to sports than they do to religion.