On Meaningless Statistics

EurekAlert! reports on a University of South Carolina study regarding arrest rates.

The study's key findings include:

• By age 18, 30 percent of black males, 26 percent of Hispanic males and 22 percent of white males have been arrested.
• By age 23, 49 percent of black males, 44 percent of Hispanic males and 38 percent of white males have been arrested.
• While the prevalence of arrest increased for females from age 18 to 23, the variation between races was slight. At age 18, arrest rates were 12 percent for white females and 11.8 percent and 11.9 percent for Hispanic and black females, respectively. By age 23, arrest rates were 20 percent for white females and 18 percent and 16 percent for Hispanic and black females, respectively.

In addition to Brame and Bushway, the research team included Ray Paternoster at the University of Maryland and Michael Turner at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

The study, a representative sample of the larger population, builds on a previous one by the team that was released in January 2012 in the journal Pediatrics. That study garnered national attention for providing the first look since the 1960s at arrest prevalence and for its key finding that one in three people are arrested by age 23.

That's interesting.  Being arrested is NOT the same thing as being convicted.  I would hazard a guess that a lot of arrests are related to driving -- probably quite a few DUIs.  You can be arrested for a misdemeanor as well as for a felony.    

It makes a nice attention-grabbing headline but the results, as presented, are much less dramatic.  Always keep the salt handy when people start quoting statistics.