Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

ILoveSludge t1_iwt7spk wrote

What was the point of the exercise? Is there a hypothesis you are examining here?

4

Me_Melissa t1_iwvzfmm wrote

It was an attempt to test the implied hypothesis of another commenter who basically said that red states are red, bc their people don't support social services, bc their poor who use those services are more fraudulent and criminal, bc they're black.

So we came up with some objective metrics to attempt to plot how many of the poor are black and how badly they get incarcerated grouped by R and D.

3

ILoveSludge t1_iww63pv wrote

I think this is trying to do too much at once and ends up not actually conveying anything meaningful. IMO

1

terrykrohe OP t1_ix0i53y wrote

... you are right: there is "too much at once"

... it is a "presenter" problem: how much to present and 'how deep'?

I am hoping that the work presented will "catch the eye" ... and address the few who are curious and willing to spend the time/effort to "figure it out".

2

terrykrohe OP t1_iwt9h2o wrote

... there is NO hypothesis

The post was created when a commenter of a previous post was curious about B/W incarceration and B/W income ... data from the sources was used to answer the inquiry.

−2

terrykrohe OP t1_iwt54av wrote

sources
income differences
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/bridges/volume-3-2020/examining-us-economic-racial-inequality-by-state
incarceration differences
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/p20st.pdf (pg 10, Table 3)

tool: Mathematica

***************

– the plot points represent the fifty US states; and are colored according to their 2020 Electoral College vote
– top two plots: the dashed lines are the means; the 'boxes' are ± one standard deviation (SD) from the mean
– the parenthetical percent is the "relative standard deviation" (RSD)
– bottom plot: the ellipses are centered on the Rep/Dem means; the standard deviations are represented by the ellipses' axes
– the plot points are the (B/W income ratio, B/W incarceration ratio) coordinates for each state (excepting missing income data for three states)
– see comment below for definition of "impact"

other comments:
(this post content was suggested in a comment for a previous post; "best-fit lines, correlations: incarceration vs evangelical", posted27Oct)

i) the B/W income ratio data is pretty much the same for Rep and Dem states
ii) the B/W incarceration ratio data is about a third larger for Dem states than for Rep states; the four largest B/W incarceration ratios were for New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Louisiana (descending incarceration order) ... an unexpected result
iii) for both Rep and Dem states, as the B/W income ratio increases, the B/W incarceration ratio decreases
iv) the Rep states' slope is larger than the Dem states' slope; also, the Rep r-value is greater than the Dem r-value
v) the B/W income ratio does NOT follow the non-random, top/bottom Rep/Dem pattern seen for previous metrics; which indicates that B/W income inequality is not biased because of a state's political orientation

2

MissingWhiskey t1_iwt5zdb wrote

I guess you proved that crime doesn't pay.

2

EconomistPunter t1_iwt55jk wrote

The negative relationship you have doesn’t make sense. Since it’s mostly young or less educated blacks getting imprisoned, taking them out of the labor market artificially reduces wage inequalities.

1

lurkytourkey t1_iwtc7k3 wrote

Spreading divisive material is divisive.

1

Leading_Principle316 t1_iwuok6e wrote

why people from countries with much lesser incomes commit less crimes ?

1

Leading_Principle316 t1_iwuoo44 wrote

why polish immigration from 80's which worked on wage minimum never created polonocentric gangs.

1

Leading_Principle316 t1_iwuoskk wrote

why low income chinese migrants are landing in prison way less often than other groups?

1

terrykrohe OP t1_iwt65q0 wrote

the "impact" quantity
1
looking at the bottom plot ... which data set is more 'important' – the Rep states or the Dem states?
the slope of the Rep states best-fit line is larger, does that make Rep states data more significant?
the correlation value of the Rep states best-fit line is larger, does that make Rep states data more significant?

2
The correlation values of +1, 0, –1 are well-defined; but the in-between values are not well-defined: I have learned that when using r-values to give meaning to data, that r-values need to be compared "relatively". Still, I am not sure how much more meaningful is data with an r-value of 0.62 compared to data with an r-value of 0.50. It would seem that 0.62 is more meaningful than 0.50.

3
There is associated with r-values a P-value
– The r-value is a measure of the "strength" of the data used to fit the slope of the best-fit line.
– The P-value is the probability of the r-values non-randomness: a low P-value indicates that the given r-value is less likely to be due to random fluctuations; a large P-value indicates the data is more likely to be due to random fluctuations of the Population; thus, a low P-value has more significance than a large P-value.
– defining the "impact" as "r-value/P-value" yields a quantity which can be used to quantify the significance of the data points about a best-fit line.

4
For the B/W income ratio vs B/W incarceration ratio plot, the Rep best-fit line has an 'impact' of "–306" and the Dem best-fit line has an 'impact' of "–1.3".
Conclusion: The Rep states' data is more significant/important than the Dem states' data.

−1