Now, an interesting question comes to mind here. How many Deaf people get arrested each year? Whether they get arrested for DUI, domestic abuse, failure to appear in court, rape charges whether it's campus rape or not, rioting, protests (remember DPN2 arrests?), drug possesion, trespassing, stalking, vandalism or other more serious crimes. This includes Deaf juveniles such as teens who get arrested. Whatever the reason for the arrests but it'd be nearly impossible to find the average number of Deaf people who get arrested each year because such statistics are extremely hard to find and gather.
In the Sherlock's use of "28 Deaf people arrested" cannot be used as an absolute total number of Deaf people arrested so far this year. For all we know it could be 200 Deaf people arrested. It could be 50. It could be 1,000. Or it could be 10,000! We don't know for sure exactly. And to compound that we have people who are deaf/hh and not Deaf who get arrested each year as well. Although in the past I have blogged before on Deaf prisoners but that's not helpful in what I'm trying to do here.
The number of Deaf people in the U.S. varies between 600,000 to 1,000,000. Let's take a middle number like 800,000 Deaf people in the U.S just for simplicity sake. There are 310,000,000 people in the U.S. The ratio of Deaf people to hearing would be about to 1 out of 400. The number of arrests for all offenses each year for all people using a 2005 statistics from the FBI is approximately 14,000,000 arrests. Despite this it's best to look at the rate of arrests per number of inhabitants.
Nationwide, the 2005 rate of arrests was estimated at 4,761.6 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants..We can expect that some of 4,761 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants (or 0.047 arrest rate) which we can conclude safely that it does include Deaf people that were arrested. When one says "arrest" it doesn't mean convicted, prosecuted, and/or imprisoned. Just arrested for a crime to be booked. Many are released and not face jail time and instead be on probation or pay a penalty fine. Many, if not most, do end up in jail or incarcerated.
Since people are human and the crimes are the same regardless if a person has a hearing loss or not and that we're all equal as far as human frailty is concerned, the rate of arrests nationwide is 0.047 or 4.7 percent. That means we can expect 37,000 arrests out of a Deaf population of 800,000 every year (simple math, 0.047 times 800,000 equals 37,000). Remember, arrests can be for minor charges to the more serious. Some arrests are multiple arrests for the same person. Again, let me stress this to you folks before you go all hyper on me like you usually do. 37,000 arrests DOES NOT MEAN 37,000 Deaf people arrested each year. It means possibly that up to 37,000 arrests on average are expected each year in a Deaf population of 800,000. It'd be impossible to know exactly the average number of Deaf people that get arrested each year but we can make some assumptions on the average number of arrests in a Deaf population. A different thing here. If you are getting angry at this 37,000 arrest number then you need to either re-read what I just wrote or have someone else explain it to you.
Now, having said all that. Since the Deaf population is a recognized minority group that's quite distinct due to its uniqueness as a culture group any high profile arrests of Deaf people that gets splattered across the news headlines will probably get more notice than not. For example, the VRS scam involving many notable Deaf names. And are much more likely to have an impact on the image of the Deaf community than not simply due to its being a recognized and unique minority group.
So, it's rather a gross and rookie mistake to use the "28 Deaf people arrested in a year" to figure out the statistics on the number of Deaf people arrested in a year. Right, DonG? Doing so is nearly an impossible task to try and do in the first place since there is no database that I know of that collect that kind of rather personal and specific information.
16 comments:
Are we seeing another Carl-MM-like feud? I do recall Car and MM blogged to each to other, engaging in the debates, when DeafRead first appeared...
~grinning~
I totally agreed with you on this. When I read "28 people arrested arrest in a year..." and I stopped right there. Because I don't want to waste my life reading on the wrong statistics.
I supposed they meant deaf celebrities. However, those people don't look celebrities to me!
Anyway, what's story with John Yeh's case since the trial date was yesterday.
Karen,
Feud with Carl? Don't remember blogging anything to do specifically with Carl. Maybe you're thinking of somebody else?
Carl and MM debated with each other through blogs when DeafRead first appeared... I don't know if you remembered that. Perhaps MM could tell you that.
Now I am seeing the similar trend, with you and DrDon, except that you through blogs and DrDon through vlogs. Ha.
Well, this has almost has nothing to do with your latest posting, so you have the right to delete my comments. There's nothing "positive" nor "negative" in this comment... just making a boring comment, ha.
Me an Carl ended up mutual disrespecting each other lol Statistics in America are like Statistics everywhere bull manure mostly. Charities swear by statistcs as do many in the deaf cultural area, all are 'guesstimates' Charities make up their own in the UK because there is no system that asks all the people, or all the right questions.
UK says 1 in 7 of us are deaf and otherwise graded by decibel. One deaf deaf charity reported and 20,000 INCREASE in deaf people and added they were all BSL using as well, but not a shred of actual proof was provided.
When they want funds they are 9 million when they want culture they are 50k.
We have 9 MILLION with loss, however less than point 2 per cent of them are so seriously disabled by it they are recorded that way. Of that number no records or surveys exist to determine if they are cultural, signing, CI using or whatever...
Oooh, oh that MM. I was thinking me. Now I understand.
Dude, at my college, my statistics teacher (she's a real good one that is) gave us the class a stern lecture right at the bat in the beginning.
She made it clear to us by the facts statistics are just that -statistics-. There's no guarantee it'd be 100% accurate and are known to be skewed, as well as biased depending on questionings, etc.
So whenever I see statistics report, I usually take it with a grain of salt
It should be pointed out that even these publicated 26 arrests were not all deaf, of which I know at least 2 of them are interpreters themselves and third person just a hearing person. There may be more hearing persons out of these same 26 people that some of you are assuming to be deaf.
I just saw DR Dong and wondering how did he managed to get PH. D. Amazing!
Flatace5,
I already said that in my blog.
Mike McConnell, I should be pissed with you this time. But talking about a feud between you and me?
People! Listen up, there is NO feud between me and mike! In fact, he does have my respect. In this one, he has done a great job on this post. I congratulate him.
But when I said 28 deaf people arrested.. I should go on record that I do know some of these people who do work in the deaf community as well. And yes, it a personal feeling to hear these people going through court.
Especially Ridor and Micah Brown.
For Ridor, I do have sympathy for him and I don't hate him much.
For Brown, he has no choice but to throw himself at the mercy of God now.
and if anyone else wants to bash me, talk to me before you do it.
And thus, McConnell, that's your shot across your bow for next time.
Thanks.
Allow me to paraphrase Mark Twain...
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Sherlock. No. Not about a feud between you and me (e.g. Sherlock vs Kokonut). That was NEVER mentioned in this blog or comment in here! Karen Mayes said at the very beginning "another Carl-MM-like feud?" in this comment thread. I thought she meant between me (since 'MM' is my initials, too) and Carl S. I didn't realize she meant "MM" of RIM in England. That was until "MM" spoke up.
I think you need to retrieve your arrow.
Kevin, yep. But it's something we have. We certainly cannot have a personal database describing each arrest of every personal detail. Police reports in each state are required to submit their arrest figures to the Federal govt. So, the number of arrests for 2005 (a little over 14 million) is as accurate as you can get. The problem is breaking it down into recognizable statistics (e.g. Deaf arrests versus deaf/hh) but we can make certain assumptions about the rate of arrest per inhabitant group. And apply that to the Deaf population whose who morals are no different from that of the hearing population.
Sherlock, I was not talking about you... I was teasingly inquiring if we'd be seeing the Carl-MM feud between Mike M. and DrDon, nothing more.
:-)
erm it's MM of WALES (Cymru) NOT England. It's important to me anyway to be identified as Welsh not English. we don't have the same ID system as you do in that you can be Afro-American, Irish American etc, we are Welsh or English or Irish or Scottish. Anyway me 'n Carl are best mates now lol.... wasn't much of a disagreement anyway.
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