The United States currently incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other nation. Despite making up close to 5% of the global population, the U.S. has nearly 25% of the world’s prison population.
Perhaps you have heard the terms ‘mass incarceration (Links to an external site.)’ or ‘prison industrial complex (Links to an external site.)’. In this discussion, will first look at incarceration numbers over time and then take a closer look as to how these numbers affect communities of color. As a bonus, if you’re the first person to post the correct solution (i.e. write up the correct solution and embed an image of your work) to any part of the following question – you don’t need to submit the entire problem…just one part – you will receive two extra credit points. Woo-hoo!
Let’s begin by looking at the US prison population numbers from the past 50 years and fit a linear model to this data.
Year19701980198519902000201420162019Prison Population357,292513,900759,1001,179,2002,015,3002,306,2002,298,3002,267,000(a) What is the equation of the LSRL?
(b) When do we predict the prison population reached one and a half million?
(c) Interpret the slope of the regression line in the context of the problem.
(d) Is the line an appropriate model for these data? Explain. Your solution should reference the three factors that decide whether a model is an appropriate fit to data.
(e) How mass incarceration has disproportionately affected communities of color? Use statistics to justify your response.
Additional statistics are included below.
Additional Statistics:
Black men make up 6.5% of the US population and 40.2% of the US prison population.
The lifetime likelihood of imprisonment for White men is 1 in 17, for Black men is 1 in 3, and for Latino men is 1 in 6.
The lifetime likelihood of imprisonment for White women is 1 in 111, for Black women is 1 in 18, and for Latino women is 1 in 45.
In 2001, there were 878,400 African Americans in the prison population.
InstructionsMain Post
Add a new post in the Group Discussion by Wednesday night at 11:59pm (to do so, select the “reply” button, below).
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Answer at least one of the five parts of the question.
Use the equation editor in Canvas or embed an image with your solution. Embedding an image is not the same as attaching an image.
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Note: You cannot see other students’ posts until you post; you may wish to consider composing your post in another word processing application prior to posting here to check for typos. Initial posts that are blank, made to gain entry to the Discussion without posting work, will not receive credit.
Bonus: Be the first to post the correct solution (i.e. write up the correct solution and embed an image of your work) to any part of the question, you will receive two extra credit points. If you post to the discussion, see that part of the question has already been solved, you can make an additional post to solve another part of the question.