kiddie killers

[Trazor]

The reasoning is unsound. You seem to be statistically challenged. there is a chance of wrongful conviction for the one murder situation. There is a significant probability that there will be a wrongful conviction in 1000 murders, but the probability that a wrongful conviction for any one of those murders does not necessarily differ form the probability in the one murder situation.

Being picky is essential to prevent being saddled with bad policies and decisions based on bad science.

vinty said and I quote ... "If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions....That statement is true as follows....

If we say for arguments sake 1% of convictions are false.
Then every 100 convictions will have 1 person wrongly convicted.
Every 1000 convictions will have 10 persons wrongly convicted


Nowhere, was their any reference to the problems of any individual conviction.

Was this an assumption on your part...?
Did you not understand that one simple sentence...?

vinty is not arguing about individual cases, just the total number of wrongful convictions

 

[Softus]

vinty said and I quote ... "If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions....That statement is true as follows....

vinty's statement is false.

Please explain how the following can all be true statements:

If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions

every murder carries the chance of wrongful conviction equally

if less murders are being committed , then the police will charge less people with murder so the chances of an innocent person being charged and convicted should be less, all things being equal.

___________________

vinty is not arguing about individual cases, just the total number of wrongful convictions

The total number of wrongful convictions will vary from year to year; so too will the murder rate, the detection rate, and the conviction rate. Nobody is arguing about that. It's the claim that the probability varies that people are arguing about. You and vinty appear to the think that it changes; everyone else appears to think that it doesn't.

Notwithstanding all that, it's irrelevant to my point - even one wrongful arrest is one too many to make the death penalty anywhere near justifiable. Even without that argument, I don't think it's the right solution to the problem.

 

[Softus]

It's not rocket science for god's sake!

What if, instead of a life sentence, the penalty for a paedophile was to strap them to an rocket that stood on a conveyor belt that exactly matched the speed of the outer surface of the Earth's atmosphere, but `in the opposite direction. When launched, would the rocket be in orbit the instant it left the ground? And is that rocket science?

Or, what if the nonce was made to work the rest of his/her life researching and developing a new strain of leafy green vegetation that cured all types of cancer - would that be rocket science?

 

[Trazor]

The total number of wrongful convictions will vary from year to year; so too will the murder rate, the detection rate, and the conviction rate. Nobody is arguing about that. It's the claim that the probability varies that people are arguing about. You and vinty appear to the think that it changes; everyone else appears to think that it doesn't.

Notwithstanding all that, it's irrelevant to my point - even one wrongful arrest is one too many to make the death penalty anywhere near justifiable. Even without that argument, I don't think it's the right solution to the problem.

Would you please show me where I said that the probability varies........?
The probability of a wrongful conviction is the same for every individual case.

vinty's statement was quite straightforward ....more murders = more arrests = more wrongful convictions.

 

[Softus]

Would you please show me where I said that the probability varies........?

Certainly - it was here:

If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions,

Er, no.

The number of events in the 'conviction' sample set doesn't change the probability of any one of those being wrongful.

Er, yes.

1 murder...1 arrest...little chance of wrongful conviction.

1000 murders...1000 arrests...high chance of wrongful conviction.

 

[Softus]

vinty's statement was quite straightforward ....more murders = more arrests = more wrongful convictions.

Each one of his statements was straightforward, but not all of them were correct.

You seem to have a selective memory. Not long ago you posted this:

vinty said and I quote ... "If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions....That statement is true as follows....

vinty's statement was not just about numbers, but also about CHANCE.

 

[Trazor]

The probability of any individual conviction being incorrect remains the same.

But the more murders their are, the more arrests that are made, the more the chances are of their being a wrongful conviction. That is about total numbers, not individual cases.

Vinty's first statement was just about numbers, you and others read more into it than was there......

And as regards the conveyor belt....

You are being silly softus, the conveyor would create a vortex in the centre, which would create a black hole. Thus sucking everything into a ball the size of a pinhead.

 

[Softus]

The probability of any individual conviction being incorrect remains the same.

I agree.

But the more murders their are, the more arrests that are made, the more the chances are of their being a wrongful conviction.

I disagree, because this conflicts with what you wrote above.

It's possible that you're using the word "chance" to mean something other than probability. For example, if by "chances" you mean "opportunities to read about a wrongful conviction in the newspaper", then I agree that more cases equates to more opportunities.

If that's the case, then I wish you luck with your discussion about chances. I shall not be taking part in that, because it's pointless. I was discussing probability, which is an entirely different point.

Vinty's first statement was just about numbers, you and others read more into it than was there......

Ah. I didn't realise that you were arguing about just one of vinty's sentences. In that case permit me to ignore the sentence that you're arguing about, and to focus on the one that was WRONG.

 

[JohnD]

please explain how the reasoning is unsound, if no murders are committed what are the chances of a wrongful conviction for murder?

If no murders were committed, I suppose all the people executed would be innocent, including, for example, mothers whose babies suffered cot death and were found guilty of killing them.

If no murders were committed then no-one would be wrongfully convicted so therefore no-one would be executed. ....

Just a minute...

In the example I was thinking of, a murder had not been committed, a child had died suddenly and unexpectedly, but through natural causes.

But the mother was still found guilty of killing the child

Until after some years in prison she was let out and told it was a mistake.

And topped herself.

 

[Softus]

If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions,

Er, no.

The number of events in the 'conviction' sample set doesn't change the probability of any one of those being wrongful.
_________________

It seems that vinty has silently accepted that he was wrong.

It also seems that, despite the fact that the people in favour of the death penalty believe that they're in majority, there is no cogent argument in favour of it, other than revenge.

AFAIK there are no Christian grounds for revenge, since I'm told that the bible prohibits it, so, as joe-90 pointed out, it's a primitive and thoughtless reaction that has no place in our civilisation.

 

[tim west]

What if, instead of a life sentence, the penalty for a paedophile was to strap them to an rocket that stood on a conveyor belt that exactly matched the speed of the outer surface of the Earth's atmosphere, but `in the opposite direction. When launched, would the rocket be in orbit the instant it left the ground? And is that rocket science?

Or, what if the nonce was made to work the rest of his/her life researching and developing a new strain of leafy green vegetation that cured all types of cancer - would that be rocket science?

Ah but the rocket might be re-entering instead of launching

 

[vinty]

I think you have misread my original post, if less homicides are committed, then the total number of miscarriages should also be less, that's all i said, as i have said before if 10 homicides are committed will the total number of miscarriages be the same as could occur in 1,000 homicides, i wasn't referring to the probability of a miscarriage in an individual homicide.

 

[vinty]

vinty said and I quote ... "If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions....That statement is true as follows....

vinty's statement is false.

Please explain how the following can all be true statements:

If less homicides are being commited then there should be less chance of wrongful convictions

every murder carries the chance of wrongful conviction equally

if less murders are being committed , then the police will charge less people with murder so the chances of an innocent person being charged and convicted should be less, all things being equal.

___________________

vinty is not arguing about individual cases, just the total number of wrongful convictions

The total number of wrongful convictions will vary from year to year; so too will the murder rate, the detection rate, and the conviction rate. Nobody is arguing about that. It's the claim that the probability varies that people are arguing about. You and vinty appear to the think that it changes; everyone else appears to think that it doesn't.

Notwithstanding all that, it's irrelevant to my point - even one wrongful arrest is one too many to make the death penalty anywhere near justifiable. Even without that argument, I don't think it's the right solution to the problem.

I think i know what you are getting at now, i also think you are being a bit pedantic, i wasn't implying that probability in individual cases changes, what i was referring to was the total number of miscarriages.

 

[Softus]

If your intended meaning was different, then I apologise for misreading it.

Moving on from that, the reduced number of wrongfuls doesn't do anything to mitigate the overwhelming wrongness of the death penalty, because (a) one or some innocent people would be slaughtered by the state, and (b) because killing someone for any crime is not a solution to a problem, and (c) there are practical benefits to keeping all convicts alive.

For example, some of the truth about the Holocaust will never emerge, because the people who really know what happened were either hung or allowed by circumstances to commit suicide.

As another example, 'allowing' Myra Hindley to live resulted in her revealing the location of more burial sites.

 

[Trazor]

If your intended meaning was different, then I apologise for misreading it.

Whistles softly.

Moving on from that, the reduced number of wrongfuls doesn't do anything to mitigate the overwhelming wrongness of the death penalty, because (a) one or some innocent people would be slaughtered by the state, and (b) because killing someone for any crime is not a solution to a problem, and (c) there are practical benefits to keeping all convicts alive.

For example, some of the truth about the Holocaust will never emerge, because the people who really know what happened were either hung or allowed by circumstances to commit suicide.

As another example, 'allowing' Myra Hindley to live resulted in her revealing the location of more burial sites.

Totally agree with you on that......