The Use and Abuse of Statistics
Sorry that I missed posting a blog last weekend. I was busy preparing for one of our intensive distance learning residential weeks at Lampeter University, and as usual was running so late that certain things had to be sacrificed.
One of my academic interests is equipping students in the use of tools derived from the social sciences in order that they may better understand the dynamics of the world and community in which they live. I call this ‘critical social analysis’ and much of what I teach is based on the pioneering work in devising a pedagogy for social transformation which was the life-long task of Paulo Freire. I encountered Freire first through his books like Pedagogy of the Oppressed but when he held a post in popular education at the World Council of Churches, and I was involved in development education for the churches in New Zealand, our paths crossed on many occasions. One of the things I learnt from him was that knowledge can be packaged in the way a government, an educational institution, or teachers decide is appropriate, and can deliver messages those in power want the rest of us to hear. And this applies equally to statistics, and they way they can be used for social control on the one hand, or for human development and emancipation on the other.
I was reminded of that this week when I read that the American radio show host, William Bennett, one time Education Secretary under Ronald Reagan, and drugs czar under George Bush the Elder made a statement which seems to have embarrassed Republicans everywhere. He said, “If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose; you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down”. Although he went on to say that aborting black babies would be an “impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down” the damage was done. He was implying that US statistics indicate that there are a disproportionate number of Black criminals in comparison to the white population.
This reminded me of a situation I became aware of in New Zealand several decades ago, an instance which I now use as a case study with my students. An organization of mainly Maori and Pacific Island unemployed people in Auckland were similarly confronted by Government statistics which suggested that an overwhelming number of crimes were committed by, and the larger part of the prison population represented by the minority Maori and Pacific Island population. Certainly there was no other conclusion to be drawn from the way that the information was presented.
The organization then turned its attention to other sets of statistics presented by the Government and quickly became interested in the unemployment figures. They noticed that whereas the figures on crime were described in terms of gender and race, the numbers of those employed and out of work were presented by district and by gender only. So members very quickly articulated the question ‘Why are the statistics on crime presented on the basis of race, and those on unemployment on the basis of gender?’ They decided to engage in some research of their own into what the unemployment statistics would look like if they too were presented on the basis of race.
There’s probably little need to tell you what happened. The proportion of persons from minority populations who were unemployed almost precisely reflected the proportions of those from these communities who were branded as criminal. They came up with some horrific stories including one of an unemployed Pacific Islander who became so desperate to feed his family that he stole several loaves of bread from a supermarket. This alternative research was a cogent reminder that for many people life is absorbed by the daily struggle just to survive, just to find food, clothing and shelter for one’s family. It also revealed that in many instances our political economy reckons crimes against property to be worse than crimes against persons. And importantly it demonstrated the way that Governments, simply by the way they present statistics, can employ them for ideological ends or racist purposes.
So it looks to me as if William Bennett was doing the American Government’s work for it in highlighting the perception that Black people commit a disproportionate amount of crime. What ideologically perpetrated interventions of this kind never highlight is the relationship between poverty and crime, survival and lawbreaking, race and unemployment. It is for many of us not just an injustice but an indication of moral turpitude that in the world’s richest country possessing the world’s biggest economy there exist so many people who have become so marginalised, so alienated, so humiliated, so bereft of the compassion of the rest of the community, that they are unable to survive.
In the face of such endemic poverty it is an outrage that people like William Bennett choose to talk in terms of aborting Black babies rather than in terms of building a genuinely just, participatory and inclusive society in which the opportunities and the benefits are available to all.
One of my academic interests is equipping students in the use of tools derived from the social sciences in order that they may better understand the dynamics of the world and community in which they live. I call this ‘critical social analysis’ and much of what I teach is based on the pioneering work in devising a pedagogy for social transformation which was the life-long task of Paulo Freire. I encountered Freire first through his books like Pedagogy of the Oppressed but when he held a post in popular education at the World Council of Churches, and I was involved in development education for the churches in New Zealand, our paths crossed on many occasions. One of the things I learnt from him was that knowledge can be packaged in the way a government, an educational institution, or teachers decide is appropriate, and can deliver messages those in power want the rest of us to hear. And this applies equally to statistics, and they way they can be used for social control on the one hand, or for human development and emancipation on the other.
I was reminded of that this week when I read that the American radio show host, William Bennett, one time Education Secretary under Ronald Reagan, and drugs czar under George Bush the Elder made a statement which seems to have embarrassed Republicans everywhere. He said, “If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose; you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down”. Although he went on to say that aborting black babies would be an “impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down” the damage was done. He was implying that US statistics indicate that there are a disproportionate number of Black criminals in comparison to the white population.
This reminded me of a situation I became aware of in New Zealand several decades ago, an instance which I now use as a case study with my students. An organization of mainly Maori and Pacific Island unemployed people in Auckland were similarly confronted by Government statistics which suggested that an overwhelming number of crimes were committed by, and the larger part of the prison population represented by the minority Maori and Pacific Island population. Certainly there was no other conclusion to be drawn from the way that the information was presented.
The organization then turned its attention to other sets of statistics presented by the Government and quickly became interested in the unemployment figures. They noticed that whereas the figures on crime were described in terms of gender and race, the numbers of those employed and out of work were presented by district and by gender only. So members very quickly articulated the question ‘Why are the statistics on crime presented on the basis of race, and those on unemployment on the basis of gender?’ They decided to engage in some research of their own into what the unemployment statistics would look like if they too were presented on the basis of race.
There’s probably little need to tell you what happened. The proportion of persons from minority populations who were unemployed almost precisely reflected the proportions of those from these communities who were branded as criminal. They came up with some horrific stories including one of an unemployed Pacific Islander who became so desperate to feed his family that he stole several loaves of bread from a supermarket. This alternative research was a cogent reminder that for many people life is absorbed by the daily struggle just to survive, just to find food, clothing and shelter for one’s family. It also revealed that in many instances our political economy reckons crimes against property to be worse than crimes against persons. And importantly it demonstrated the way that Governments, simply by the way they present statistics, can employ them for ideological ends or racist purposes.
So it looks to me as if William Bennett was doing the American Government’s work for it in highlighting the perception that Black people commit a disproportionate amount of crime. What ideologically perpetrated interventions of this kind never highlight is the relationship between poverty and crime, survival and lawbreaking, race and unemployment. It is for many of us not just an injustice but an indication of moral turpitude that in the world’s richest country possessing the world’s biggest economy there exist so many people who have become so marginalised, so alienated, so humiliated, so bereft of the compassion of the rest of the community, that they are unable to survive.
In the face of such endemic poverty it is an outrage that people like William Bennett choose to talk in terms of aborting Black babies rather than in terms of building a genuinely just, participatory and inclusive society in which the opportunities and the benefits are available to all.
posted by MichaelElliott @ 9:56 AM
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