Ep 12. Crime data isn't great. Dr. Matt Nobles explains how a strong research methodology can address these problems.
Riedman Report: Risk, AI, Education, & Security
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Show Notes
Host: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database
Guest: Dr. Matt Nobles, Criminologist and Methodologist, University of Central Florida
* All research projects start with finding data or evidence, and then applying a research methodology to answer the question.
* Federal crime data is incomplete, published ~2 years after crimes occur, and doesn’t add up when multiple sources are cross-referenced.
* Before 2000, there wasn’t a federal mandate for colleges and universities to report crimes on campus. Dr. Nobles’ first major research project was analyzing unreported sexual assaults on campus.
* There is not a Higher Education School Shooting Database because it’s very hard to define the boundaries of a university campus (e.g., is a shooting during college night—specifically targeting college students—at a bar next to campus a higher ed school shooting?)
* Without standardization of crime data, we don’t know the characteristics of crimes, we can’t measure the impacts, we don’t know if rates are going up/down, and we can’t develop useful public policy.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.
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