text: Ha, this is hilarious, and shows you just how statistics can be used to paint two very different pictures. 
  Statement 1 (quote): "statewide robbery rates have decreased over the last 30 years". True.
  Statement 2: statewide robbery rates are now at their highest point in almost two decades. Also true.
  Statement 3: Alaska rape, assault and robbery all higher now than at turn of century. Also true. 
  Statement 1 (from the article) might lead you to believe that your personal experience of thefts going up is a hallucination. Statements 2 & 3 sound almost sensational, but no less true than 1 or 2. 
  Important to put the critical thinking cap on once in a while. I wonder what the value of the 30-year histogram is? Is it telling a story about generational changes? Are there conclusions one can draw from this and are they different than 5, 10 or 15-year views? What do they correlate to?