How Timely

Perfect timing with this news item about Worth Dikeman refuting claims by the Gallegos campaign about the County being safer since Gallegos took office. As I mentioned in one of my last comments from yesterday's post, whatever statistics get thrown around, they'll get tweaked and twisted to suit whoever uses them.

Gallegos released statistics trying to back up his claim. I don't throw too much weight behind such statistics. The only one that seems a bit impressive is the one showing increased imprisonment rates from ten or more years ago. That could be a good or bad thing depending on one's point of view. I think it would depend on who's being imprisoned. But one thing that's true state wide is that violent crime is supposedly down and property crimes have gone up as of late.

Whether Gallegos can take credit for any of that, I'm skeptical. I don't see how any district attorney can take credit for having any effect on the crime rate at all. Crime is cause by all kinds of dynamics, too many for one man or an office to have much effect on. But, the DA's office is responsible for prosecuting crimes and, in so much as taking an offender off the street stops further offenses, I suppose some credit is due to the DA offices across the state. You can be sure Gallegos and his folks will still keep trying to manipulate statistics to boost his image just as Dikeman will manipulate them the other way around.