Not as much as you'd think.

(That's the subhed under "How much crime is there on military bases?") DANIEL WTF IS THIS. What. The. Fuck. Is this your doing, and if it's not, have you just not noticed? Get your goddamn editor on the phone and fix it.

Never mind that. Why would people think there's a lot of crime on military bases?

Well yeah exactly. That's my point. Can you imagine if, regarding some peaceful largely-minority neighborhood, Slate was to write an article "Is there a lot of crime in -blank-? Not as much as you'd think." Wasn't it obvious to someone how OFFENSIVE this would be? ...yet it's still there, right this minute.

Not if the BLANK was Detroit.

bsharporflat: I don't know much about Detriot, so let's say D.C. If they filled in the blank with D.C., I wouldn't find it offensive because I've heard a lot of specific things about the area and so setting up the headline to juxtapose the reality with my perception would be effective and make sense. But to my knowledge, the perception in this case isn't founded on anything more than uncharitable stereotypes, the "well, we all know the military is made up of people who were given the choice by some judge to sign up or go to jail" idea. It's an insult to people who serve and a disservice to people who don't know anything about the military beyond what they read from other people who don't know anything about the military.