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Aren't organizations incentivized to make the problem they're fighting look worse? Students reach new lows on standardized tests - give more funding to schools; We're falling behind in a particular field of research - give more money for researchers; No one wants to pay for elite art - subsidize elite art; More generally, if you express even the faintest interest in supporting a charity or a nonprofit, they will bombard you with newsletters about how terrible things are, and how the world will end if you don't send them money RIGHT NOW!
And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of these crimes outside of FBI jurisdiction to begin with?
Whoever those fudged numbers are supposed to make look better, it's probably not the FBI, and outside political pressure seems pretty likely, especially when we know for a fact it goes unpunished in the event it's discovered, and undisputable.
Organizations are incentivized to make the problem they're fighting look maximally affecting - you don't want to push your constituents over the edge to thinking that the problem is insurmountable. You're also incented to make your own efforts look seriously busy and important - or at least like you're forestalling worse outcomes - otherwise you get a reputation as useless.
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It's weird how that happens. We should do the opposite. When a problem gets worse, we should defund and replace the failing organizations who are responsible. (For example, San Francisco area homeless orgs).
On the other hand, when organizations succeed we should give them more money (For example, SpaceX).
I'd argue we should do neither. whether the amount of homeless went up or down, it may not have anything to do with the homeless orgs at all. They didn't make the problem, and they may deserve anywhere from 0-100% of the credit for each person who is no longer homeless, or 0-100% of the blame for failing to solve the problem.
For best results, you'd need metrics that represent what the homeless org did, how well it worked, and the reasons why it didn't work better. In the FBI's case it would be things like the number of cases investigated vs solved, time spent per investigation, etc.
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