{"id":681,"date":"2011-07-26T12:04:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T17:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=681"},"modified":"2011-07-26T12:16:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T17:16:00","slug":"go-figure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=681","title":{"rendered":"Go Figure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?attachment_id=156\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-156\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-156\" title=\"webeagle\" src=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle2-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/iowappa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/webeagle2.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Statistics are a funny thing.\u00a0 You can make statistics do just about anything you want them to do.\u00a0 For instance, if I give 100 people a dollar bill and ask each of them to hold it for me for the next week; I might find the following in a week\u2019s time:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>16 people lost it;<\/li>\n<li>29 gave me a dollar bill back after the week, but it wasn\u2019t the same one I gave them;<\/li>\n<li>20 will return the original bill;<\/li>\n<li>3 will ask for change;<\/li>\n<li>12 spent it and claimed they misunderstood me; and<\/li>\n<li>I will never be able to locate the other 20.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From that information there are people who will discover that 77% of people can\u2019t be trusted.<\/p>\n<p>I can see where someone might come up with that conclusion.\u00a0 But was I looking for that outcome?\u00a0 Perhaps the conclusion sought was to determine what people did with money when it was given to them, and nothing more.\u00a0 Lately, I have noticed that a statistical conclusion has very little to do with the facts which were accumulated.\u00a0 For instance, I read about a program in which offenders who participated in a particular substance abuse program had a ten percent recidivism rate.\u00a0 That sounds impressive until you begin to ask questions.\u00a0 I discovered that the results were based upon whether the participants were re-arrested in a six month period \u2013 by the same law enforcement agency.<\/p>\n<p>I would hope that when participants in a substance abuse program are monitored they are monitored about whether they have remained straight and sober.\u00a0 There are too many variables to conclude recidivism rates from a substance abuse program.\u00a0 And six months is hardly a standard to use in creating a baseline.<\/p>\n<p>Drug Policy Alliance has released a report, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.drugpolicy.org\/drugcourts\">Drug Courts Are Not the Answer: Toward a Health-Centered Approach to Drug Use<\/a>*.\u00a0 The Report focuses on the effectiveness, or rather the ineffectiveness of drug courts.\u00a0 However, in the report there is a small segment that addresses the methodology of accumulating and interpreting data.\u00a0 I can\u2019t say it any better than quoting from the Report:<\/p>\n<p>As one researcher testified at a congressional hearing in 2010, \u201cOver half of the criminal justice programs designated as \u2018evidence-based\u2019 programs in the National Registry of Evidence Based Programs includes the program developer as evaluator.\u00a0 The consequence is that we continue to spend large sums of money on ineffective programs (programs that do no good, and in certain circumstances actually do harm).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s troubling to realize that the developer of a program is the evaluator.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a statistician, but it seems to me that there needs to be more independent oversight and analysis of programs before a practice can be called \u2018evidence based\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, my conclusion to the example above is that I\u2019ve probably made a poor investment and lost $48.\u00a0 Now, that would be evidence based.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n<p>*You may obtain a printed copy of the Report by contacting the Drug Policy Alliance and requesting a copy.\u00a0 Tell them Marty and Stephanie sent you.\u00a0 However, clicking the link above will get it to you quicker.<\/p>\n<address>Ethan Nadelmann<\/address>\n<address>Executive Director<\/address>\n<address>Drug Policy Alliance<\/address>\n<address>70 West 36<sup>th<\/sup> Street, 16<sup>th<\/sup> Floor<\/address>\n<address>New York, NY 10018<\/address>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I would hope that when participants in a substance abuse program are monitored they are monitored about whether they have remained straight and sober.  <a href=\"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=681\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,17,32],"tags":[252,254,253],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-issues","category-substance-abuse-and-alcoholism","tag-drug-policy-alliance","tag-ethan-nadelmann","tag-national-registry-of-evidence-based-programs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}