NFL Arrest API
July 30, 2017 1:22 PM Subscribe
Web developer Patrick Murphy has been maintaining a website, NFL Arrest, which keeps track of how often members of the National Football League are arrested. The site offers a handy API, which allows you to slice and dice the data yourself- breaking it down by team, position, player, and more.
The list of the most recent arrest per team is a horrific journey through minor crimes (unpaid tickets, weed), incredibly weird and stupid shit (eye-poking, golf cart), and extreme violence against women and an animal and an occasional man. I think I need to set this as my homepage.
posted by carbide at 2:28 PM on July 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by carbide at 2:28 PM on July 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
So, the confounding factor here is that law enforcement in some states may just be more likely to arrest people, and most of the arrests are in the player's home state. I wonder if you could filter out home-state arrests to adjust for that.
posted by miyabo at 2:31 PM on July 30, 2017
posted by miyabo at 2:31 PM on July 30, 2017
At first I thought this was kind of a dick move, but now I'm just morbidly curious about the arrest rates of arbitrary groups. How many redditors have been arrested by subreddit? How many Mefites?
posted by weewooweewoo at 2:31 PM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by weewooweewoo at 2:31 PM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
How does traumatic brain injury compare to, say, lead exposure as a predictor of arrests?
posted by clawsoon at 3:31 PM on July 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 3:31 PM on July 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
How does traumatic brain injury compare to, say, lead exposure as a predictor of arrests?
There's your million dollar question right there. Every now and then I am able to quit watching the NFL for as long as a season but I am always pulled back in. The off-field violence, the concussions, the behavior of Goodell, and so many other factors just temper my joy and enjoyment of the game.
posted by Ber at 4:19 PM on July 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
There's your million dollar question right there. Every now and then I am able to quit watching the NFL for as long as a season but I am always pulled back in. The off-field violence, the concussions, the behavior of Goodell, and so many other factors just temper my joy and enjoyment of the game.
posted by Ber at 4:19 PM on July 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: Eye poking, golf cart.
posted by 4ster at 6:49 PM on July 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by 4ster at 6:49 PM on July 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
It is important to note his caveat on the website which indicates that the arrest rate for NFL players is lower than the US average. Context is everything when it comes to things like this.
Of course, you can always dispute what the context should be. Is it better to compare to the general population? By similar income? By age or race or gender? Each of these will reveal something different.
posted by nolnacs at 5:51 AM on July 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
Of course, you can always dispute what the context should be. Is it better to compare to the general population? By similar income? By age or race or gender? Each of these will reveal something different.
posted by nolnacs at 5:51 AM on July 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
Many NFL players grow up in areas with lead exposure, could there be a combined TBI & lead exposure effect?
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:11 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:11 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Many NFL players grow up in areas with lead exposure
I'm not going to make any assumptions, but lead is one issue, and if there's a there there, this makes my environmental justice sense tingle.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:49 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm not going to make any assumptions, but lead is one issue, and if there's a there there, this makes my environmental justice sense tingle.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:49 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Every now and then I am able to quit watching the NFL for as long as a season but I am always pulled back in. The off-field violence, the concussions, the behavior of Goodell, and so many other factors just temper my joy and enjoyment of the game.
Now imagine that same caliber of athletes, but with flag football. No head trauma. No linebackers. Faster, more fluid play.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:02 AM on July 31, 2017
Now imagine that same caliber of athletes, but with flag football. No head trauma. No linebackers. Faster, more fluid play.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:02 AM on July 31, 2017
Nice site, but it neglects to credit the grunt work of the newspaper reporter who developed the original data. (Or maybe I missed it.)
He's Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today, who has been maintaining a database of NFL arrests for many years.
(To be fair to the website creator, I did find credit buried here.)
posted by sixpack at 7:21 AM on July 31, 2017
He's Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today, who has been maintaining a database of NFL arrests for many years.
(To be fair to the website creator, I did find credit buried here.)
posted by sixpack at 7:21 AM on July 31, 2017
"Keep in mind there are 1700 NFL Players and their arrest rates are lower than the USA arrest rate."
Kind of buries the lede, don't you think? I admire this design (and also love the public data API's list upthread, thanks jenkinsEar!) but I also worry about the ability of data visualization apps like this to encourage a critical stance towards data and the assumptions baked into it. Not saying there isn't value in making intra-league comparisons, or inexcusable and awful behavior of some players. But I feel like "crime is out of control in this subset of people" is implicit here without asking why we feel that way, how it relates to dynamics like the relationship of police to communities of color/race and class/violence towards women/TBIs/etc. That caveat appears visibly in text at the top, but it's not part of the way the visualization itself communicates and conveys data, and I think that gap of persuasion matters.
(I say all of this as somebody early on in a career in data analysis/science and wondering about this stuff a lot!)
posted by elephantsvanish at 7:38 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Kind of buries the lede, don't you think? I admire this design (and also love the public data API's list upthread, thanks jenkinsEar!) but I also worry about the ability of data visualization apps like this to encourage a critical stance towards data and the assumptions baked into it. Not saying there isn't value in making intra-league comparisons, or inexcusable and awful behavior of some players. But I feel like "crime is out of control in this subset of people" is implicit here without asking why we feel that way, how it relates to dynamics like the relationship of police to communities of color/race and class/violence towards women/TBIs/etc. That caveat appears visibly in text at the top, but it's not part of the way the visualization itself communicates and conveys data, and I think that gap of persuasion matters.
(I say all of this as somebody early on in a career in data analysis/science and wondering about this stuff a lot!)
posted by elephantsvanish at 7:38 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
"Keep in mind there are 1700 NFL Players and their arrest rates are lower than the USA arrest rate."
I bet you they're higher than the USA arrest rate when you adjust for income.
I would also bet they're higher than other major league sports.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:31 AM on July 31, 2017
I bet you they're higher than the USA arrest rate when you adjust for income.
I would also bet they're higher than other major league sports.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:31 AM on July 31, 2017
"Keep in mind there are 1700 NFL Players and their arrest rates are lower than the USA arrest rate."
I bet you they're higher than the USA arrest rate when you adjust for income.
Their arrest rates are almost certainly higher if you compare them straight-up against the arrest rates of all those in the US who earn $770k a year (the median income for NFL players). But would this be a fair comparison? The vast majority of those earning $770k a year are lawyers, doctors, hedge fund managers, etc. who came from backgrounds of extraordinary privilege. You'd effectively be comparing the arrest rates of those who grew up in South Central to those who grew up in Bel Air. Wouldn't it be more realistic to compare the arrest rates of NFL players with the arrest rates in the communities where they were raised?
posted by slkinsey at 11:06 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I bet you they're higher than the USA arrest rate when you adjust for income.
Their arrest rates are almost certainly higher if you compare them straight-up against the arrest rates of all those in the US who earn $770k a year (the median income for NFL players). But would this be a fair comparison? The vast majority of those earning $770k a year are lawyers, doctors, hedge fund managers, etc. who came from backgrounds of extraordinary privilege. You'd effectively be comparing the arrest rates of those who grew up in South Central to those who grew up in Bel Air. Wouldn't it be more realistic to compare the arrest rates of NFL players with the arrest rates in the communities where they were raised?
posted by slkinsey at 11:06 AM on July 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I would also bet they're higher than other major league sports.
According to this guy, no.
posted by slkinsey at 11:15 AM on July 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
According to this guy, no.
...the NBA had by far the highest arrest rate (5.1 percent) of the major professional sports leagues in America. Major League Baseball is second with an arrest rate of 2.1 percent last year. Believe it or not, the NFL is last with (2.0 percent) of its players in trouble.But there are other articles claiming completely the opposite.
posted by slkinsey at 11:15 AM on July 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
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posted by jenkinsEar at 1:23 PM on July 30, 2017 [3 favorites]