Deltoid

In article none+1 stratos@crl.com Janine K. Johnson wrote:

Recently, several postings discussed the Orlando Florida phenomena of 1966/67, in which a drop in the rape rate was noted after a much publicized program co sponsored by the local police and the Orlando Sentinel, in which 6,000 women were trained in the use of firearms.

Knox, and other experts who have analyzed the Orlando phenomenon, contend that the rape rate decreased because of the media publicity, and because women were armed and trained. (Paxton Quigley, Armed and Female, St. Martins Press.):

Mr. van Meurs rebutted this contention by showing data that demonstrate that when examined over a longer period of time, the drop between the 1966 and 1967 rape rate is not distinguishable from the noise of random variations in rapes in Orlando. Based on this, Mr. van Meurs believes he has proved the training program did not have any effect on the rape rate.

I think you have misunderstood him. The training program might have had an effect on the reported rape rate. However, you cannot reject the alternative explanation that the decrease was due to random variation in the rate.

Steve D. Fischer writes:

No, Mr Van Meurs did not prove his case. He failed to show that the previously observed drops in rape did not ALSO occur because of:

(1) Increased police vigilance due to public outrage over past increases in the rate of rape.

(2) Media attention given to the high magnitude of rape.

One simple explanation could be called the "pissed off" model. Rape continues to rise until it reaches a level at which the public becomes pissed off and pressures the police to do something about it. The increase in police activity either gets the rapists off the streets or scares them away to an area which is receiving less heat at the moment. Viewed in that way, the gun training program was simply one way the public showed its outrage. All the past decreases could have occurred through very deterministic ploys aimed at getting the rape rate down to "an acceptable level."

Perhaps they did. However, this is an argument AGAINST the possibility of the gun training causing the decrease. If these other measures decreased the rate in the past then this suggests that they decreased the rate in 67 as well, and the gun training may not have had any effect.

The potential mistake Mr Van Meurs has made is in assuming that rape is totally random. The only way to test my hypothesis is to go back and read the news accounts each year in Orlando and determine if special efforts were taken in the years that the previous decreases in rape were noted.

There's a big problem with your hypothesis. Let me illustrate with an example:

I'm going to roll a pair of dice to simulate a random crime rate. If the rate gets into double figures the community is outraged and demands that something be done to reduce it. I'll respond by saying "Abracadabra" before rolling the dice to try to drive the crime rate. Here goes:

4 9 7 9 9 5 11 (Oh no! Crime has skyrocketed! Abracadabra!!) 6 (Phew! Got it back down.) 7 10 (Oh no! It wore off! Abracadabra!!) 6 6 10 (Abracadabra!!) 4 (Wow! reduced it 60%!) 7 8 etc etc.

Every time I said "Abracadabra" the rate went down. Do you think that I made it go down?