-[ Quoting William Elliot , to Dennis Menard ]-
 WE> Statistics on murder are racialy biased also.  Black murder of white
 WE> the most likely for convection.
 DM> Yes.
 WE> Whoops, ... are most likely for death sentence, IIRC.  These
 WE> statistics have been normalized to account for the number of murder
 WE> cases that have been brought to court in each category.  So tho there
 WE> may actually be fewer black murder of whites, than white of whites, the
 WE> result of convention or death is more likely if you're black.
Acknowledged.  Also, I'm presuming you meant "conviction" vs "convection,"
from the original message?  :-)
 DM> :(  As, according to 1995 statistics, the non-Hispanic black
 DM> population of the U.S. was only 12%, their almost unbelievable %
 WE> This could be because they break the law more often.  I don't know of
 WE> an easy statistical way to show that this is a bias rather than
 WE> increased lawlessness.
That's true.  But there are a number of anecdotal cases that really prompt
one to wonder; check out the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Philadelphia, about 14
years ago, black activist, on death row for about a dozen years now.  Time's
running out for him; scheduled for execution next summer, I believe.  This
is only an example.  Even a superficial glance at the facts of this specific
case can't help but to illustrate what a sloppy frame it is ... but, Mumia
will almost certainly  executed, notwithstanding.
I must admit, though, I've little desire to get into a "discussion" about
this case online.  The snippets above should be sufficient, if you have any
interest in following up.  CNN recently aired a documentary about the case,
on the "Passionate Eye," as well.
 WE> Now, if you considered the number of arrests to the number of
 WE> convictions in each group and compared those ratios, a bias would
 WE> become more apparent as the ratios should be nearly equal.  Yes, this
 WE> is testing for a different sort of bias, but it has an advantage of
 WE> being more objective.
Yes.  But you need lots of raw data for one to be able to do this oneself;
and where does one find this kind of analysis performed and the results made
available to the general public?
Why do statistics reveal that, in states where the death penalty has been
RE-instated after years of not having it, the rate of capital crimes within
the first few years actually increases instead of decreasing?
--
... ZENOCIDE: killing of ancient philosophers.
-=- Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
--- SLMAIL v4.5a  (#0185)
---------------