Dear Editor,
In his book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things are Better Than You Think, Hans Rosling introduces the concept of the “Gap Instinct.” This is our tendency to present things in extremes — rich versus poor, good versus bad, funded versus unfunded.
Mr. Green, Chairperson of the Santa Monica Police Officers Association, coaxes readers into an overly dramatic and divided perspective in his July 10 opinion piece entitled “Opinion: Santa Monica massively underfunding its police department,” Mr. Green points out that Santa Monica allocates 25.7% of its general fund budget to the Police Department, while cities like Manhattan Beach and Glendale spend over 40% on public safety.
Relying on percentages can lead to misleading conclusions. For example, 83% of individuals who died in motorcycle accidents at this year’s Sturgis Rally were riding Harley-Davidsons. This might make you conclude that Harley-Davidsons are inherently dangerous. But since Harley-Davidsons make up 90% of the bikes there, this changes the interpretation.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation publishes crime statistics adjusting for population size, allowing for comparison across regions and time periods. The same should be done for police budgets. Reworking Mr. Green’s chart of police budget percentages with this approach we have the following...
When we adjust Mr. Green’s figures for such comparisons, we find that Santa Monica’s spending is not “drastically underfunded.” It is quite similar to that of Manhattan Beach and Culver City, and significantly higher than in Glendale, Torrance, and Huntington Beach.
Appropriate presentation of data allows us to move away from Rosling’s Gap Instinct - the division of things into two distinct and conflicting groups. In fact, Santa Monica’s funding of its Police Department is not “out of step with nearly every comparable city around” as Mr. Green asserted. Perhaps the real question might be — what in the world is going on in Beverly Hills?
Philip Bretsky, Santa Monica resident
