jdh@hou5g.UUCP (Julia Harper) (08/15/84)
Ok, I don't want any more mail on rape. However, I would like to say that there seems to be a majority of people who feel that even if it's a hooker, it counts as rape. I guess that means that if the statistics say 15% of women are raped, and some portion of the 15% are hookers, that portion should indeed be included in the statistics. Whew, I'm glad we cleared that up. p.s. Send your mail to the net, instead of me.
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (09/09/84)
* ] > Performing the indicated operations that means
* ] > 7 per cent of all women will be raped. (Assuming there is a 50 year
* ] > window).
* ]
* ] That's a big assumption. Do you think a woman of 60 has the same chance of
* ] being raped as a woman of 20? Hardly. You have to make an age breakdown of
* ] those 700 rapes and determine the effective window based on that. I suspect
* ] 15 is more reasonable.
*
* Go back to your Intro To Stat class, Jeff. That 700 out of 500,000 figure
* is for the *entire* population of women. If women in one age category
* are less likely to be raped, those in another are more. If we accept
* your assumption that only women from, say, 17-32 are at risk, then the
* chance of them getting raped must be about 5 times higher (assuming
* uniform age distribution for the sake of argument) than 700 out of 500,000,
* in order to produce the composite figure. (Alas, women, and girls, of
* all ages are at risk...)
Um. Maybe you could use a refresher in Reading Comprehension. (Maybe I could,
too, but that's another matter.) I am well aware the figure is for the entire
population, and I did not say that there is, in real life, only a 15 year
risk window. The way to calculate the window is this:
The 700 can be tabulated with respect to age. We can also know how many
women are in each year of age in Dallas. For each year we can then find the
percentage chance of being raped (isn't this wonderfully clinical? :-)).
Adding all the percentages together gives a total percentage, which will be
equal to 700/500,000 times my "effective window". 15 years may be a totally
cockeyed guess, I may be 100% wrong about who is most likely to be raped, but
my method is correct.
This total percentage, times the fudge factor due to unreported rapes,
gives the chance a woman in Dallas will be raped in her lifetime, assuming
the population distribution with respect to age remains constant during
that time (which it won't, of course, but...).
* ] With my assumptions, the number is now 6.3% instead of 33% (in Dallas).
* ] Which is still pretty frightening. But not nearly as effective grist for
* ] the propaganda mills.
* ] Jeff Winslow
*
* ``Propaganda mills''? Sounds like a ``conspiracy'' theory. Why are
* you trying to deny the problem, Jeff? Dallas does, indeed, have a
* high rape rate compared to other cities--but so does Los Angeles,
* New York, and other *large* cities. The problem is here, and it is
* grave. Were I to find a conspiracy here, it would be one of silence.
"Conspiracy theory" is your idea, not mine. I don't believe in them, and it
beats me how you get them out of my admittedly emotional reference
to "propaganda mills". And it beats the hell out of me that you can say
my figure of 6.3% is "denying the problem". Do you think that a 1 in
15 chance of being raped in one's lifetime isn't a problem? :-)
So why am I making such a big deal over statistics? Two reasons:
1. I like to form my opinions on truth as much as possible.
2. If you exaggerate a statistic, and it can be shown you did, you lose
credibility, and people will stop listening to you. Even if the problem
is the gravest possible. Everyone devoted to a cause should endeavor
to get the most accurate statistics possible, not the most spectacular.
Jeff Winslowmcewan@uiucdcs.UUCP (09/11/84)
#R:tekecs:-404000:uiucdcs:31600087:000:1608
uiucdcs!mcewan Sep 11 14:06:00 1984
I think everyone is missing something. If I remember correctly, the
500,000 figure was the total female population of the city. If there's
only a small range of ages in which women are raped (which I'm not
convinced is the case) then you have to reduce that 500,000 figure
to the number of women in that age range. However, if you don't make
any assumptions at all about age, use the total number of females,
and use the average life span as the window, you get the same result!
The original posting that suggested a 50 year window was too conservative.
Having said that, I now make a 180 degree turn and say that I think
that the above calculation is too simplistic. For one thing, it
assumes that each victim will only be raped once (I'm not sure if
the 700 figure was number of rapes or victims, so we may have a
source of error right there.) If, for example, we assume that
the probability of getting raped is the same regardless of age or
previous attacks, the percentage would be
1 - (1- ((700/500000) * fudge factor)) ^ expected life span
which is considerable different. A more accurate figure could be
obtained by getting a breakdown of ages for the rape statistics
and population, and calculating
1 - product i=1..whatever {1 - ((# women age i reporting rapes) /
(# women of age i)) * fudge factor(i)}
A lot would depend on the fudge factors, which would probably have a
lot of errors (there is a certain amount of guesswork involved) which
makes this calculation highly suspect.
Scott McEwan
pur-ee!uiucdcs!mcewan
"Just because something is obvious doesn't mean that it's true."merrill@raja.DEC (10/31/85)
If you read the FBI Crime report for the year, multiply by 30 (years per generation) and divide by the number of women you should come close to 25%, BUT many women DO get raped multiple times but that data is not available generally. Sooo I would credit the 1 in 10 number more than the 1 in 5 number.
miche@masscomp.UUCP (Harvey) (11/02/85)
In article <1181@decwrl.UUCP> merrill@raja.DEC writes: > >If you read the FBI Crime report for the year, multiply by 30 (years per >generation) and divide by the number of women you should come close >to 25%, BUT many women DO get raped multiple times but that data is >not available generally. Sooo I would credit the 1 in 10 number more >than the 1 in 5 number. > Why do you chose to multiply by thirty years? Isn't women's lifespan in the seventies? Both babies and very old women are raped. This brings us back to the 1 in 4 number. Miche Baker-Harvey {decvax|ihnp4}!masscomp!miche
dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) (11/02/85)
In article <1181@decwrl.UUCP> merrill@raja.DEC writes: >If you read the FBI Crime report for the year, multiply by 30 (years per >generation) and divide by the number of women you should come close >to 25%, BUT many women DO get raped multiple times but that data is >not available generally. Sooo I would credit the 1 in 10 number more >than the 1 in 5 number. You are assuming that, while 9/10 of the women don't get raped, the 1/10 that do are raped an average of 2.5 times each. That's a dilly of an assumption. For this to be true, victims of previous rapes would have to be 6 times likelier to be raped again than women who have never been raped. This would seem to imply that the victims are "asking for it" to a degree that even lifelong, hardened MCPs would have difficulty accepting. -- David Canzi "Permission is not freedom."
warren@pluto.UUCP (Warren Burstein) (11/03/85)
In article <1181@decwrl.UUCP>, merrill@raja.DEC writes: > > If you read the FBI Crime report for the year, multiply by 30 (years per > generation) and divide by the number of women you should come close > to 25%, BUT many women DO get raped multiple times but that data is > not available generally. Sooo I would credit the 1 in 10 number more > than the 1 in 5 number. > > I'm not convinced. This sounds like what I used to do in physics lab when I didn't have any real data. There must be solid facts somewhere.
hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath) (11/05/85)
In article <1824@watdcsu.UUCP> dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) writes: >You are assuming that, while 9/10 of the women don't get raped, the >1/10 that do are raped an average of 2.5 times each.... > >For this to be true, victims of previous rapes would have to be 6 times >likelier to be raped again than women who have never been raped. This >would seem to imply that the victims are "asking for it" to a degree >that even lifelong, hardened MCPs would have difficulty accepting. It doesn't imply anything of the kind. A woman who lives and/or works in a high crime area is much more likely to be raped than one who doesn't and that's just one possible explanation. By definition, no one asks to be raped. -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe) Citicorp(+)TTI Common Sense is what tells you that a ten 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. pound weight falls ten times as fast as a Santa Monica, CA 90405 one pound weight. (213) 450-9111, ext. 2483 {philabs,randvax,trwrb,vortex}!ttidca!ttidcc!hollombe
vsh@pixdoc.UUCP (Steve Harris) (11/06/85)
>>You are assuming that, while 9/10 of the women don't get raped, the >>1/10 that do are raped an average of 2.5 times each.... >...A woman who lives and/or works in a >high crime area is much more likely to be raped than one who doesn't... I have heard that most rapes are by "friends and relatives", not the classic "dark alley knife wielding fiend". Because the victim does not confront the rapist later (often denies it to herself), the rape recurs. -- Steve Harris | {allegra|ihnp4|cbosgd|ima|genrad|amd|harvard}\ Pixel Systems Inc. | !wjh12!pixel!pixdoc!vsh 300 Wildwood Street | Woburn, MA 01801 | 617-933-7735 x2314