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Articles 1 - 20 of 20
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The Problem With Assumptions: Revisiting “The Dark Figure Of Sexual Recidivism”, Tamara Rice Lave, Jj Prescott, Grady Bridges
The Problem With Assumptions: Revisiting “The Dark Figure Of Sexual Recidivism”, Tamara Rice Lave, Jj Prescott, Grady Bridges
Articles
What is the actual rate of sexual recidivism given the well‐ known fact that many crimes go unreported? This is a difficult and important problem, and in “The dark figure of sexual recidivism,” Nicholas Scurich and Richard S. John (2019) attempt to make progress on it by “estimat[ing] actual recidivism rates . . . given observed rates of reoffending” (p. 171). In this article, we show that the math in their probabilistic model is flawed, but more importantly, we demonstrate that their conclusions follow ineluctably from their empirical assumptions and the unrepresentative empirical research they cite to benchmark their calculations. …
Numbers, Patrick Barry
Numbers, Patrick Barry
Articles
Numbers can be numbing. Depend too much on them to make your case, pitch your product, or tell your story, and you risk losing your audience. This essay offers a way to way to use numbers—both large and small—in a manner that is at once more compelling and more concrete.
Teaching Business Statistics: Some Useful Relationships, Phil Rice, Chris Brune
Teaching Business Statistics: Some Useful Relationships, Phil Rice, Chris Brune
Articles
The purpose of this paper is to suggest an instructional approach in the introductory business statistics course that utilizes relationships between separately introduced topics. The paper will explore three “useful relationships” that can assist classroom instruction: (1) the relationship between the simple arithmetic mean, the weighted arithmetic mean, and the expected value of a discrete probability distribution; (2) the relationship between the use of the multiplication rule to calculate the joint probability associated with two events, use of tree diagrams, and the use of the binomial and hypergeometric distributions; and (3) the relationship between the geometric mean and the compound …
The Effect Of Using A Project-Based Learning (Pbl) Approach To Improve Engineering Students' Understanding Of Statistics, Fionnuala Farrell, Michael Carr
The Effect Of Using A Project-Based Learning (Pbl) Approach To Improve Engineering Students' Understanding Of Statistics, Fionnuala Farrell, Michael Carr
Articles
Over the last number of years we have gradually been introducing a project based learning approach to the teaching of engineering mathematics inDublin Institute of Technology. Several projects are now in existence for the teaching of both second-order differential equations and first order differential equations.We intend to incrementally extend this approach acrossmore of the engineering mathematics curriculum. As part of this ongoing process, practical realworld projects in statistics were incorporated into a second year ordinary degree mathematics module. This paper provides an overview of these projects and their implementation. As a means to measure the success of this initiative, we …
Lawyer As Soothsayer: Exploring The Important Role Of Outcome Prediction In The Practice Of Law, Mark K. Osbeck
Lawyer As Soothsayer: Exploring The Important Role Of Outcome Prediction In The Practice Of Law, Mark K. Osbeck
Articles
Outcome prediction has always been an important part of practicing law. Clients rely heavily on their attorneys to provide accurate assessments of the potential legal consequences they face when making important decisions (such as whether to accept a plea bargain, or risk a conviction on a much more serious offense at trial). And yet, notwithstanding its enormous importance to the practice of law (and notwithstanding the handsome legal fees it commands), outcome prediction in the law remains a very imprecise endeavor. The reason for this inaccuracy is that the three principal tools lawyers have traditionally relied on to facilitate outcome …
Controlling The Jury-Teaching Function, Richard D. Friedman
Controlling The Jury-Teaching Function, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
When evidence with a scientific basis is offered, two fundamental questions arise. First, should it be admitted? Second, if so, how should it be assessed? There are numerous participants who might play a role in deciding these questions—the jury (on the second question only), the parties (through counsel), expert witnesses on each side, the trial court, the forces controlling the judicial system (which include, but are not limited to, the appellate courts), and the scientific establishment. In this Article, I will suggest that together, the last two—the forces controlling the judicial system and the scientific establishment—have a large role to …
What We Think, What We Know And What We Think We Know About False Convictions, Samuel Gross
What We Think, What We Know And What We Think We Know About False Convictions, Samuel Gross
Articles
False convictions are notoriously difficult to study because they can neither be observed when they occur nor identified after the fact by any plausible research strategy. Our best shot is to collect data on those that come to light in legal proceedings that result in the exoneration of the convicted defendants. In May 2012, the National Registry of Exonerations released its first report, covering 873 exonerations from January 1989 through February 2012. By October 15, 2016, we had added 1,027 cases: 599 exonerations since March 1, 2012, and 428 that had already happened when we issued our initial report but …
Testing Racial Profiling: Empirical Assessment Of Disparate Treatment By Police, Sonja B. Starr
Testing Racial Profiling: Empirical Assessment Of Disparate Treatment By Police, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
In this Article, I explore why measuring disparate-treatment discrimination by police is so difficult, and consider the ways that researchers' existing tools can make headway on these challenges and the ways they fall short. Lab experiments have provided useful information about implicit racial bias, but they cannot directly tell us how these biases actually affect real-world behavior. Meanwhile, for observational researchers, there are various hurdles, but the hardest one to overcome is generally the absence of data on the citizen conduct that at least partially shapes policing decisions. Most crime, and certainly most noncriminal "suspicious" or probable-cause-generating behavior, goes unreported …
Evidence-Based Sentencing And The Scientific Rationalization Of Discrimination, Sonja B. Starr
Evidence-Based Sentencing And The Scientific Rationalization Of Discrimination, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
This Article critiques, on legal and empirical grounds, the growing trend of basing criminal sentences on actuarial recidivism risk prediction instruments that include demographic and socioeconomic variables. I argue that this practice violates the Equal Protection Clause and is bad policy: an explicit embrace of otherwise- condemned discrimination, sanitized by scientific language. To demonstrate that this practice raises serious constitutional concerns, I comprehensively review the relevant case law, much of which has been ignored by existing literature. To demonstrate that the policy is not justified by countervailing state interests, I review the empirical evidence underlying the instruments. I show that …
Effects Of Clergy Reporting Laws On Child Maltreatment Report Rates, Frank E. Vandervort, Vincent J. Palusci
Effects Of Clergy Reporting Laws On Child Maltreatment Report Rates, Frank E. Vandervort, Vincent J. Palusci
Articles
Child maltreatment (CM) reporting laws and policies have an important role in the identification, treatment, and prevention of CM in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [US DHHS], 2012). Abuse by a member of the clergy “is not only a personal and emotional betrayal, but [also] a spiritual betrayal, with secrecy amplified by the unprecedented and systemic cover-up committed by the Church hierarchy” (Coyne, 2011, p. 15). Recent controversies have resulted in the consideration of changes in mandated U.S. reporting laws that include increasing requirements for clergy and extension to additional professions (Freeh, Sporkin, & Sullivan, …
Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward H. Kennedy
Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward H. Kennedy
Articles
The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to …
Reply To Richard A. Leo And Jon B. Gould, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien
Reply To Richard A. Leo And Jon B. Gould, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien
Articles
The following is a letter to the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law received from Professors Samuel Gross and Barbara O'Brien, responding to an article published in the Journal in Fall 2009 by Professors Richard Leo and Jon Gould. This letter is followed by a reply from Professors Leo and Gould. Professors Gross and O'Brien did not see the reply prior to the Journal going to press. As we have indicated before, we welcome letters to the Journal from readers on any topic covered in a prior issue. - Editors
Frequency And Predictors Of False Conviction: Why We Know So Little, And New Data On Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien
Frequency And Predictors Of False Conviction: Why We Know So Little, And New Data On Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien
Articles
In the first part of this article, we address the problems inherent in studying wrongful convictions: our pervasive ignorance and the extreme difficulty of obtaining the data that we need to answer even basic questions. The main reason that we know so little about false convictions is that, by definition, they are hidden from view. As a result, it is nearly impossible to gather reliable data on the characteristics or even the frequency of false convictions. In addition, we have very limited data on criminal investigations and prosecutions in general, so even if we could somehow obtain data on cases …
Dna As Evidence: Viewing Science Through The Prism Of The Law, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Dna As Evidence: Viewing Science Through The Prism Of The Law, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In this article, we analyze a problem related to DNA evidence that is likely to be of great and increasing significance in the near future. This is the problem of whether, and how, to present evidence that the suspect has been identified through a DNA database search. In our view, the two well-known reports on DNA evidence issued by the National Research Council (NRC) have been badly mistaken in their analysis of this problem. The mistakes are significant because the reports have carried great authority with American courts; moreover, the DNA Advisory Board of the FBI has endorsed the second …
Dna Database Searches And The Legal Consumption Of Scientific Evidence, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Dna Database Searches And The Legal Consumption Of Scientific Evidence, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
DNA evidence has transformed the proof of identity in criminal litigation, but it has also introduced daunting problems of statistical analysis into the process. In this Article, we analyze a problem related to DNA evidence that is likely to be of great and increasing significance in the near future. This is the problem of whether, and how, to present evidence that the suspect has been identified through a DNA database search. In our view, the two well-known reports on DNA evidence issued by the National Research Council ("NRC"), each of which has carried great authority with the American courts on …
Probability And Proof In State V. Skipper: An Internet Exchange, Ronald J. Allen, David J. Balding, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman, David H. Kaye, Lewis Henry Larue, Roger C. Park, Bernard Robertson, Alexander Stein
Probability And Proof In State V. Skipper: An Internet Exchange, Ronald J. Allen, David J. Balding, Peter Donnelly, Richard D. Friedman, David H. Kaye, Lewis Henry Larue, Roger C. Park, Bernard Robertson, Alexander Stein
Articles
This is not a conventional article. It is an edited version of messages sent to an Internet discussion list. The listings begin with the mention of a recent opinion of the Connecticut Supreme Court, parts of which are reproduced below. The listings soon move to broader issues concerning probability and other formal systems, their limitations, and their uses either in court or as devices for understanding legal proof.
Roundtable Discussion: Science, Environment, And The Law, James E. Krier
Roundtable Discussion: Science, Environment, And The Law, James E. Krier
Articles
Science, environment, and the law is our topic. The problem of interest to me has to do with risk regulation and, more particularly, with the fact that technical and scientific views of risk differ dramatically from lay or public views. How is this conflict to be managed and resolved? I have to go through my account very quickly, given the time constraint, so let me mention that it is based on an article that sets out my arguments at length.'
An Analytical Model Of Earth-Observational Remote Sensing Systems, John Kerekes, David Landgrebe
An Analytical Model Of Earth-Observational Remote Sensing Systems, John Kerekes, David Landgrebe
Articles
The field of optical remote sensing for the analysis of Earth’s resources has grown tremendously over the past 20 years. With increasing societal concern over such problems as ozone layer depletion and global warming, political support is likely to continue that growth. NASA has recently begun a program that will use state of the art sensor technology and processing algorithms to gain ever more detailed data about our Earth. To better understand the remote sensing process, research has begun on modeling the process as a system and investigating the interrelationships of system components. This paper presents a system model for …
Some Implications Of Cognitive Psychology For Risk Regulation, Roger G. Noll, James E. Krier
Some Implications Of Cognitive Psychology For Risk Regulation, Roger G. Noll, James E. Krier
Articles
Beginning with a set of books and articles published in the 1950s, cognitive psychologists have developed a new descriptive theory of how people make decisions under conditions of risk and uncertainty. A dominant theme in the theory is that most people do not evaluate risky circumstances in the manner assumed by conventional decision theory-they do not, that is, seek to maximize the expected value of some function when selecting among actions with uncertain outcomes. The purpose of this article is to consider some implications of the cognitive theory for regulatory policies designed to control risks to life, health, and the …
Statistics In Litigation: A Selective Bibliography, Michael G. Chiorazzi
Statistics In Litigation: A Selective Bibliography, Michael G. Chiorazzi
Articles
No abstract provided.