- average dealer makes $3.50 an hour (half the minimum wage)
- death rate was 7% per person per year
- compared to 2% on death row or .5% for soldiers in Iraq
- based on that, being in a gang for 10 years means you have a 70% chance of dying
Outside of legalizing these drugs, how do we change this? One, convince them how bad this is, because many of my students don't believe it. Two, give them good options by helping them to graduate high school.
Related: Despite what Freakonomics claims, it wasn't abortion that lowered crime, it was prescription drugs.
You have the probability of death over a 10 year span as being 70%, but that isn't the correct way to do that math.
ReplyDeleteIf every year you have a probability of survival of 93%, then the probability that you survive every year is 93%^10. That means you have a 48% chance of surviving a 10 year span as a dealer, or a 52% chance that you'll die in the 10 years, not 70%.
Not much better odds, but still...
One of my favorite TED talks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction Bryan. I talk a lot about how important statistics is and yet I don't fully understand it myself.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff
ReplyDelete