Missing the Point With Statistics


I just caught a few minutes of the Brazil-Croatia World Cup opener (“patient possession football” said the announcer, which apparently means kinda slow and humdrum), and before I knew it, it was halftime. So I switched over to CNN to see if anything was going on, and caught a pretty good example of how to miss the point with statistics. The chart at issue is on the right. According to James Alan Fox of Northeastern University, mass shootings aren’t on the rise, even though it might seem that they are. But there’s something missing from this analysis, and regular readers who know my hobbyhorses should be able to guess what it is.

Is it the fact that the yellow line does, in fact, seem to be rising steadily? No. An eyeball analysis suggests that it is, but it’s not a big rise, and anyway, it’s probably accounted for by population growth.

Nope, it’s this: Since 1993, the rate of violent crime in America has plummeted by half. That’s the background to measure this against. In general, America has become a much safer, much less lethal place, and yet mass shootings have remained steady. Compared to the background rate of violent crime, mass shootings have doubled. Why?

And here’s an equally interesting question: between 1976 and 1993, violent crime increased by a significant amount, but mass shootings remained steady. Again, why?

Raw numbers are a starting point, but they don’t tell the whole story. If Americans, on average, are considerably less violent than they were 20 years ago, shouldn’t mass shootings be down? The answer presumably, is that mass shootings are actually up when you measure them correctly, or else that mass shootings have nothing to do with violent tendencies in general. My guess is the latter, and it would be genuinely interesting to hear from experts about why this is.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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