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You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

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Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#11

Post by 6d0debc071 »

rhizome wrote: post #6
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #3

While element of luck is involved, I hardly think getting caught is random. I think a lot depends on preparations and profile you keep.

If it was as simple as "preparation" and "profile," then how do any of them get caught? You'd think those protections would be relatively common knowledge, at least among criminals.

I don't think criminal society is that well integrated. Nor that the people commonly a part of it are particularly 'with it' individuals.

After all - drawing left to right top to bottom, from the FBI most wanted list as of shortly before this post - we have:

1) Kidnap and murder of a little girl

2) Beating and raping a woman in march 1998

- Alleged beating, raping and murder of a second woman while out on bail

3) Alleged Shooting and killing an armoured car driver outside a movie theatre and making off with the money.

4) 1987 escape from prison followed by a 1991 murder and subsequent escape from prison in Mexico after being arrested for drug trafficking

5) Racketeering, conspiracy to launder money instruments, conspiracy to have [assorted drugs]

6) Killing his wife and two children, then burning his house down.

These aren't exactly Mensa candidates.

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#12

Post by RA_Fisher »

mildtrepidation wrote: post #9
mturmon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these secondary factors (preparations, etc.) can themselves be regarded as "random" or at least unknowable in their extent and their effects. Much like lifetimes of individuals -- having some clear predictability on an individual basis, but in aggregate, well-modeled as random variables. To be a bit more abstract, just because something is "random" does not mean it cannot be characterized with a distribution,…

The effectiveness of preparation is not random. Charting the effectiveness of such efforts, were it possible to do so, might yield a random distribution; this does not, however, imply that "all of these secondary factors" can or should be "regarded as random" for anything more than a high-level treatment that becomes worthless in the (individual) context where it actually matters.

I tried to have a very light touch with the data. Most of what I do is non-parametric -- so in this sense, yes as an individual this analysis is only good if you believe there's some similarity between you and everyone that's ever been on the list (so a finite sample).

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#14

Post by logicallee »

Based on everything we've learned recently about the government's own capabilities, I would think that null hypothesis is that being added to the list has no effect whatsoever. (Since the publication of the list is so much weaker than the government's internal capabilities, and that it is the latter that leads to arrest anyway, not some grocery clerk reporting in.)

The easiest way to see this would be to assume there's a fairly close race on average between #10 and #11 in terms of wanted-ness, and so if we knew what the shortlist was and compared the incarceration dates of the runners-up we could figure out whether there's any effect at all to the publication proper.

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#15

Post by RA_Fisher »

yukichan wrote: post #7

> df$date_put_on_list It's a cool blog post but that code isn't near readable to me. Long lines in a tiny rectangle hidden behind horizontal scroll don't make it any easier. It looks like a box of arbitrary characters stuffed into as little space as possible. Although the raw link is a little easier on the eyes: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/statwonk/9448932/raw/84b9... Whoever named that method POSIXct needs to…

You're right. My pygments Octopress plugin died and I can't figure out how to revive it, some kind of weird cache issue.

Also, I see that I forgot to add the data. You can find it here: https://github.com/statwonk/fbi_topten/blob/master/data.csv

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#16

Post by RA_Fisher »

logicallee wrote: post #14

Based on everything we've learned recently about the government's own capabilities, I would think that null hypothesis is that being added to the list has no effect whatsoever. (Since the publication of the list is so much weaker than the government's internal capabilities, and that it is the latter that leads to arrest anyway, not some grocery clerk reporting in.) The easiest way to see this would be to assume there…

I'd speculate the opposite way about the list. There have been a lot of crazy stories about grocery clerks reporting fugitives. The experiment you propose would be really cool to test a hypothesis with.

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#17

Post by foobarqux »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #15
yukichan wrote: post #7

> df$date_put_on_list It's a cool blog post but that code isn't near readable to me. Long lines in a tiny rectangle hidden behind horizontal scroll don't make it any easier. It looks like a box of arbitrary characters stuffed into as little space as possible. Although the raw link is a little easier on the eyes: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/statwonk/9448932/raw/84b9... Whoever named that method POSIXct needs to…

You're right. My pygments Octopress plugin died and I can't figure out how to revive it, some kind of weird cache issue. Also, I see that I forgot to add the data. You can find it here: https://github.com/statwonk/fbi_topten/blob/master/data.csv

Where did you get the data?

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#18

Post by RA_Fisher »

foobarqux wrote: post #17
RA_Fisher wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. My pygments Octopress plugin died and I can't figure out how to revive it, some kind of weird cache issue. Also, I see that I forgot to add the data. You can find it here: https://github.com/statwonk/fbi_topten/blob/master/data.csv

Where did you get the data?

I got the data from the FBI's website.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/ten-most-want...

I did a bit of cleaning here and there by literally Googling and finding old articles like these:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19780915&id=w...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/1998/feb/22/las-vegas-slayin...

http://vicksburgdailynews.com/2012/05/11/bain-sisters-found-...

etc.

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#19

Post by rhizome »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #11
rhizome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was as simple as "preparation" and "profile," then how do any of them get caught? You'd think those protections would be relatively common knowledge, at least among criminals.

I don't think criminal society is that well integrated. Nor that the people commonly a part of it are particularly 'with it' individuals. After all - drawing left to right top to bottom, from the FBI most wanted list as of shortly before this post - we have: 1) Kidnap and murder of a little girl 2) Beating and raping a woman in march 1998 - Alleged beating, raping and murder of a second woman while out on bail 3) All…

I'm guessing you've never been to jail. There is a pervasive subculture with a long history there.

Re: You've been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List – how long will you survive?

#20

Post by TrainedMonkey »

rhizome wrote: post #10
mildtrepidation wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's reasonable to say the degree of preparation and profile management varies significantly between someone who stole a car and someone who masterminds attacks on tall buildings in New York. Preparation and profile are not "simple," nor are they black and white, as what those things actually mean is massively different from one situation to the next, criminal dealings or not. Characterizing them as something…

Someone who stole a car doesn't make the FBI top 10.

Depends on a car.
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