i encourage other people reading to look at the chart so they can assess the veracity of ^ comment

Here it is.

https://imgur.com/a/FK3sfna

There's an enormous drop in edit: late 2019, and the second drop starts in 2023.

https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/policies/depart...

> Starting on March 19, 2024, Flock Safety began installing ALPR cameras in various strategic locations across San Francisco. This rollout is expected to take place over the next 90 days. Per 19B ALPR policy, the administration of the Flock ALPR system is the responsibility of the Investigations Bureau.

How did the Flock cameras cause two crime drops before their installation?

The article's note about 2018 is talking about extending backwards, not forwards. It's entirely accurate, and a direct quote from your link.

that drop is obviously in early 2020, not 2019 and there is no way you can look at that chart and describe car breaks ins as a "COVID blip"

Look at the X axis labels again.

The chart is trending down by January 2020, changes directions (upwards) right around the March 2020 spot, and again around (down) the July 2023 spot.

The fact that they only have data going back to 2018 means it's hard to say if the pre-COVID stuff was the norm or unusual.

To be super-clear, here's the chart annotated to show that 90 day window (black rectangle) in which the cameras were installed. https://imgur.com/a/i00Gna0

"that drop is obviously in early 2020", to reemphasize, is several years before the cameras got installed.

COVID makes it spike up (after a months long downward trend long before the cameras), not down. Nation-wide, incidentally.

The cameras were added where the black rectangle is here: https://imgur.com/a/i00Gna0

There are two nearly identical peaks on this chart. The trough between them is Covid.

I’m not seeing anything I can call a Covid spike

The lowest point of the first trough is when COVID starts. It then rapidly increases and stays high for two years.

It looks like that rapid increase was a return to pre-covid normal. It never spikes above pre-covid. Given the world was returning to normal, this is precisely what you'd expect most trends to look like, something like in-restaurant dining probably looks similar.

As the authors note, their data only goes back to 2018. So “pre-COVID normal” is tough to confirm here.

Then we have to figure out why it dropped so much pre-COVID. Because the timeline doesn’t say it can possibly be Flock.

Same for the 2023 drop. The timeline simply doesn’t match up with Flock’s rollout.

That’s why I said “how I read this chart is ….” I don’t know what pre2018 looked like either. But on this chart, it was the precovid portion.

Nowhere on here am I seeing how covid caused a spike up, that’s what you said though and signifying our differences in reading the chart that was shown.

well that's because you're discussing in good faith

Where am I using bad faith?