Applied Sciences homework help-Discussion Post Response
Reply to Christopher in 250 words
Christopher’s Post
In the world today, we constantly see many comparisons in our daily lives. When it comes to statistics, it is no different. Unfortunately, some comparisons are not always good because what is being compared, should not be getting compared at all to begin with. Like Joel Best stated, “good comparisons involve comparable items, they compare apples with apples, and oranges with oranges” (Best, 2012). Thus, it is imperative that we are not deceived by some of the statistics that we see, which we got into a little bit during last weeks discussion. It requires further evaluation on our parts in order to find good/accurate, legitimate statistics.
However, for the purpose of this discussion, I found what I believe to be a good comparison of statistics. It is from the Criminal Victimization, 2015 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It was stated that there was no statistically significant change that occurred in the rate of violent crime in 2014 (20.1 victimization per 1,000) to 2015 (18.6 per 1,000) (Morgan and Truman, 2018). This is a perfectly understandable comparison, because two consecutive years are being compared, therefore, it is expected for there to not be much change present. If it was two years being compared that were 30 years apart for example, then that could be questioned, due to population changes, societal changes, environmental changes, etc. Also, the same crime is being compared here, with no variation or other crimes involved. In other terms, ‘apples to apples’ are being compared.
When it came to property crime, the rate in which it occurred dropped from 118.1 victimizations per 1,000 households in 2014 to 110.7 per 1,000 households in 2015 (Morgan and Truman, 2018). This was surprising to me, however, the study stated that this was due to a drop in theft, as that decreased from 90.8 victimizations per 1,000 in 2014 to 84.4 per 1,000 in 2015 (Morgan and Truman, 2018). This finding shows how crimes can affect other crimes, because many of the property crimes that occur, involve theft. Thus, these are two statistics that seem to rely on each other. I believe it is important to compare theft and property crime for that exact reason. Therefore, this is another fair comparison between statistics as well.
References
Best, J. (2012). Damned Lies and Statistics. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press.
Morgan, R., and Truman, J. (2018). Criminal Victimization, 2005. Retrieved September 23, 2018 from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv15.pdf
