This is what happens when tasks are given to USA TODAY staff members / editors who have little concept of what they are doing.
According to a chart posted as a supplement to the news article on Ferguson, Missouri arrests rates was information purported to be from the FBI concerning arrests rates throughout the nation.
“The estimated arrest rate for the United States in 2012 was 3,888.2 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants. The arrest rate for violent crime (including murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) was 166.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the arrest rate for property crime (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson) was 528.1 per 100,000 inhabitants.”
The error was in stating “2012 ARREST RATE PER 1000 RESIDENTS”. If this were true, almost one in four, or one in five, would have been arrested over the course of the year.
Preposterous!
A quick check by blessed Google located the FBI report and established that the arrest rate is per 10,000, not 1,000.
Perhaps it was a typo rather ignorance. But an editor should have picked up the mistake.
We learned early in life that if it doesn’t make sense, it probably isn’t!
Rate of arrests in Lancaster City:
344.1
BLACK RATE
163.1
NON-BLACK RATE
Rate of arrest in Philadelphia:
172.5
BLACK RATE
63.6
NON-BLACK RATE
What was even worse was the column one, page one headline in the print edition stating “Blacks arrested up to 10 times more. Disparitities across USA greater than in Ferguson, Mo.” As we can see just from the Lancaster and Philadelphia census, this must be vastly misleading if not patently false. We were not able to extract the actual figures from the FBI report, although perhaps others can.
