Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

7.4 Reasoning with statistics 275

New York’s prison rate decreased

by 20% from 1999 to 2009.

Its crime rate fell by 29% in the same period.

Indiana’s prison rate rose by 47%

between 2000 and 2010, but from

2000 to 2009 its crime rate only fell by 8%.

UNLOCKING AMERICA

We can be safer when we imprison fewer people

Population in 2009 :

19.5 million

NEW YORK

STATE

INDIANA

Population in 2009 :

6.4 million

New York prison rates from ‘Downscaling Prisons’, a report by The Sentencing Project
Indiana prison rates from the Justice Reinvestment Project
Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics from the US Department of Justice.

PRISON

RATE

CRIME

RATE

PRISON

RATE

CRIME

RATE

–29%

–20%

–8%

47%

CHART 5