Re: Gun control and rape - The myths and the facts

"Phil Smythe" wrote in a message

> Your understanding of the reported figure is flawed I'm afaid. 0.0% is
> NOT the estimate number, it is the reported RATE. The US DOJ report
> gave NO estimated number. I do not know what the "actual number" is, if
> indeed there even is a number. What we both know is that US DOJ
> reported 0.0%. What we also know is that nobody has presented anything
> to challenge that.

Do me a favor, read your own source before you attempt to continue this
conversation. I'll put a few quotes up here, but you really need to go and
read ALL of it. I understand that you will claim these cut and pasted quotes
have been altered, so feel free to read the entire document, on your won,
and ignore these quotes from that document.

"These figures depict both the NCVS estimates of violent crime and their
precision. They display the same trend data as on page 2 but the scale is
changed to highlight the trend line. The first figure depicts only the best
estimates based on the NCVS
sample and does not reflect the range of possible values where the actual
number could fall. Each bar in the middle figure shows the range within
which the true victimization rate is likely to fall for that year. Because
the estimates are based on
samples, their precision depends on the sample size: the larger the sample,
the better the estimate and the smaller the range bars. The samples were
larger before 1992, which is why the earlier range bars are shorter than
those after 1992. (The 1992 range bar is very large due to the size of the
sample that year, as explained on page 8.)"

"The bars reflect the range within which the true rate is likely to fall.
When the bars are shorter, there is a greater likelihood that the true rate
will fall close to the best estimate. There is a considerable likelihood
(68% probability) that the true victimization rate lies within the range
represented by the darkest segment of the bar. There is a greater likelihood
(90%) that
the true victimization rate lies within the expanded range represented by
the two darkest segments of the bar. The full bar includes the range within
which the true value is highly likely (95%) to lie. For example, while the
best estimate in 1996 is 42
violent crime victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or over, there is a
95% likelihood that the true value of the victimization rate lies between 40
and 44."

"A measure of this likelihood is the standard error (SE), which reflects how
close to the true value (in this case, 32) the estimate is expected to be.
It is not expected that a sample will always produce that number, but it
should be close."

"Again, the standard error is used to gauge how close the estimate is to the
actual frequency of occurrence. For
example, if the people in the sample experienced a rape rate of 1.4
incidents per 1,000 people, then the
actual value in the population is close to this, or is at least within the
relevant confidence interval. In the 1996
NCVS, about 132 of the 94,000 people sampled experienced a rape, which
translates into a rate of 1.4 per 1,000
and a standard error of .14 per 1,000 people.5 Therefore, the rate of
occurrence of rape in the U.S. population is
between about 1.26 and 1.54 per 1,000 at the 68% confidence level, as shown
below."

"Sampling is not the only source of error in NCVS data; however, it is the
only one whose magnitude can be estimated.
Other sources of error in the NCVS include: Z Recall error: Respondents are
unable (or may be unwilling) to recall
victimizations and report them to survey interviewers. Z Recalling the exact
month in which the incident took place: Respondents may be unable to place
the incident in the right month (since they are interviewed every 6 months,
they may
remember not reporting it during the previous interview, but not remember
the exact date of its occurrence). Z Misclassification: Some noncriminal
incidents may be classified as crimes, and some crimes may be classified as
noncrimes (or as other types of crimes). The NCVS is designed to minimize
these types of error. It seeks to reduce recall error by using a relatively
short (6-month) recall period, so that incidents would be fresh in the
respondents' minds, and by selecting interviewers whose race and ethnicity
generally match those of the population in the area where the respondent
resides (so that respondents would be more inclined to report accurately).
It seeks to reduce misclassification error by performing edit checks on the
data and coding procedures and by using quality control procedures such as
randomly selecting interviews for callback and verification."


.

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