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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: September 1, 2003
Latest Update: September 3, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

TITLE OF ESSAY

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, September 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

On Wednesday, September 17, 2003, Quan Banks wrote:

Dear Prof. Curran,
That article and those numbers are just exactly that, numbers. If you're rich and can afford all those security features then it's all good. But most regular people don't have the resources (moolah) to pay for private patrol and alarms and such. Anyways, who in the depths of the concrete jungle, being South Central oops, I mean South L.A., would listen to a rent-a-cop? They'd be laughed at and ignored, I feel, for the most part.

On Monday, September 22, 2003, jeanne responded:

This is a good interpretation, Quan. You are right. The measures suggested for citizens to take on their own are measures permitted by privilege, privilege that poor people don't have. Not only that, but the measures the wealthy and privileged are taking do not redound to the poor; only their own property is protected.

This kind of critique would be called critical analysis, because you are looking at the overall perspective, not just that of the wealthy privileged, and because you are making people aware that all is not well with our crime control, and that that should be changed.

The kind of criticism that says we're doing the best we can given the circumstances is called apologetic analysis.

It is insights such as this that I want you to bring to statistical interpretation. jeanne