On 01-01-98 William Elliot wrote to Dennis Menard... 
 
        Hello William, 
  
        [snip] 
  
 WE> DM> :(  As, according to 1995 statistics, the non-Hispanic black 
 WE> DM> population of the U.S. was only 12%, their almost unbelievable % 
 WE> DM> over-representation with- in the judicial/penal circuit does seem 
 WE> DM> like 
 WE> DM> some perverse fairytale, or the dream of some racist fantasy, all 
 WE> DM> right.  
 
        [snip] 
  
 WE> Now, if you considered the number of arrests to the number of 
 WE> convictions in  
 WE> each group and compared those ratios, a bias would become  
 WE> more apparent as the ratios should be nearly equal.  Yes,  
 WE> this is testing for a different sort of bias, but it has an  
 WE> advantage of being more objective. 
   
  Not necessarily.  It could be coincidence, related to some 
common factor unrelated to bias, differences of results from 
equal application of the rules within the system, etc. 
 
Take care, 
John 
 
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