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Careful with the trick statistics. If you're ranking the size of groups, the result heavily depends on how you define the groups. That "4th largest" makes no se

Careful with the trick statistics. If you're ranking the size of groups, the result heavily depends on how you define the groups. That "4th largest" makes no sense because the 3 above it aren't broken down the same way and should really be split into 5 groups for consistency. Then there's the fact that the USA is the 3rd largest country by population so it should be weighted by population. It's a complete fail of a statistic obviously designed to shock without informing.

jlokier 6y ago
> Then there's the fact that the USA is the 3rd largest country by population so it should be weighted by population Most of the statistics I cited are already weighted by population; they are per-capita and percentages: "as a percentage of the population"; "a quarter of all Americans"; "almost no one gets a trial"; "2%". Those population-weighted values are astonishing. I agree the 4th largest thing is not weighted, but the astonishing part of that is that USA unconvicted incarcerations rank significantly at all, when compared with convicted in other countries. USA population size is not sufficient to explain this. It's the opposite of what I'd hope and expect, for a country where people talk of "land of the free" and "rule of law".