What is the bigger risk, falling in the bathtub or being killed in a terror attack?

On Monday Edward Snowden delivered the keynote speech to open Upper Canada College’s World Affairs Conference. Glenn Greenwald also spoke. Snowden, of course, is America’s most famous fugitive whistleblower and is either a great patriot or a filthy spy, depending on your perspective. Also speaking was Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist well known for his collaboration with Snowden. 

In speaking about the proposed new Bill C-51 which will expand the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Greenwald said:

“In Canada you are more likely to die as a result of falling in the bathtub than you are from a terrorist attack.”

He’s right.

There are about 40 bathing deaths per year in Canada. I know of only two deaths last year from terrorism (might be more, depending on how big you draw the circle, but certainly less than 40). Greenwald seems to be implying that we should be more worried about bathtub falls than terrorism. 

And on this point… He’s wrong. Well, sort of.

The death rate from falling in the bathtub is a constant. You could reduce bathing deaths by requiring foam padding on rims and shower handles and enforcing compliance with hefty fines and jail time for those who insist on recklessly bathing without a handle. So, why don’t we? Because the risk is so small that going to extraordinary lengths to protect ourselves from this risk is not deemed important. In other words, it costs too much and nobody really cares. So, we keep building bathtubs like we do. A few people will die but as a society we have deemed that this is OK partly because the death rate is within tolerable limits and partly because, as individuals, we don’t perceive bathing to be a risky activity.

The death rate from terrorism may not be constant. It might be increasing. Or, more appropriately, it might be at risk of increasing. And therein is the difference. Terrorism includes the implied risk that, left unchecked, it will increase. If we don’t fight terrorism, there will be more terrorism. We can make a difference. We can hold this growth in check, perhaps even eliminate it altogether. Thus, CSIS.

It’s a matter of issue definition and policy.

The issue is that terrorism exists and will increase if left alone. Implied in this are some additional questions. How big will terrorism get? How many people will die or be tortured? What terrorism death rate do we find tolerable? You may find it a shocking question but we already implicitly ask and answer this same question when it comes to bathtubs, car accidents, and the cleaning products under your sink. How much mayhem and death do we tolerate measured against stylish tubs, the convenience of driving, and a nice clean kitchen?

The policy question is how much money we are willing to spend and how large an abrogation of our cherished individual rights are we willing to accept in order to keep terrorism death from expanding beyond our tolerable limit?

And so, Glenn Greenwald is, broadly speaking, correct. When it comes to counter-terrorism we should be asking:

1.     What is the present terrorism risk?

2.     What is the potential risk?

3.     What short term policy should we enact that will be a cost effective means of ensuring the risk remains below tolerance? Cost effective includes money and loss of rights.

4.     What long term policy should we enact that will be a cost effective means of making the world a safer, better place.

Incidentally, I think that the present risk is much lower than most people perceive. I think the potential risk is much lower than most people perceive. I think that we are overreacting in the short term. And, I think we need a much better understanding of the long term.

Maybe crime and race issues are not about race (subtitle: how accountants ruin the world).

There has been much gnashing of teeth lately about the relationship between race, police, crime, and incarceration.

Unarmed black young men killed by white police officers are held up as clear examples of racism among law enforcement. Police supporters, on the other hand, point out that these things wouldn’t be happening if it were not for all the black-on black crime.

Dominic Carter, Huffington Post

But when are communities of color going to admit there is an alarming problem with black-on-black crime? Why does it appear that there is no real outrage about black-on-black crime?

Rudy Giuliani, Ex-Mayor of New York City

The white police officers wouldn't be there if you (black people) weren't killing each other.

Prima facie, this seems to support the viewpoint that black males are, at least in part, the author of their own disaster:

The incarceration rate of black males in the U.S. is over six times higher than that of white males.

The statistic appears to be clear doesn’t it? Black males are more likely to be criminals.

Here is the Canadian reality for First Nations people (as parsed by the Toronto Star):

In Ontario, aboriginal boys aged 12 to 17 make up 2.9 per cent of the young male population. But in Ontario youth facilities they make up nearly 15 per cent of young male admissions. In other words, there are, proportionally, five times more aboriginal boys in the young male jail population than what they represent in the general young male population.

For black boys, the proportion of jail admissions is four times higher.

For white boys and boys of other ethnicities, there is no such overrepresentation.

When it comes to girls, only aboriginal girls are overrepresented. Their jail admissions population is 10 times higher than what they represent in the general Ontario population of young girls.

It seems clear that aboriginal boys and girls in Canada are more likely to be criminals than Caucasian boys and girls. These are the stats, right?

Well… wrong, actually.

Correlation does not mean causation. In other words, just because two things correlate (race and incarceration) it does not mean that one is the cause of the other.

And this is where accountants ruin the world. They put numbers in the wrong columns.

Let me give you an analogy from my restaurant.

We are meticulous about predicting our theoretical food costs (how much our food input should cost relative to sales). Next we are meticulous about tracking our actual food cost (what we actually spent on ingredients compared to sales). If the two don’t match, then we have a problem. 

Question: Is the cost of the mini-napkin on the plate a food cost? 

Enter the accountants. Some accountants will say, no, of course not. It’s not food. Nobody eats it. But, other accountants will say, it’s just like the 2.5 ounces of beef on the Zooma Zooma panini, it’s on every single sandwich and should be considered as part of the food cost of the sandwich.

The question is, what to include and what to exclude from the group, “food cost?” There is no simple, obvious answer.

What does this have to do with black-on-black crime or Canadian aboriginal youth crime? Just as accountants who zealously miss-categorize expenses can undermine a business, so too can those who zealously attach correlation to race undermine analysis of race and crime.

Who to include and who to exclude from the group, “likely to commit a crime?” And again, there is no obvious answer.

What if instead of including all members of a race and excluding all non-members, we drew the group-boundary in a different place? What if we ignore race. We include “people of lower socioeconomic status who do not have hope for a bright future” and exclude “rich people.”

I am pretty certain you will find a correlation between poor people – regardless of race – and incarceration. And, perhaps this is the causation. Perhaps poverty and hopelessness cause crime, regardless of race.

If this is correct then it’s not aboriginal boys and girls who are more likely to be criminals, it’s poor people. And race questions should not be about crime and incarceration, they should be about poverty, empowerment, and belonging. The question is, why are blacks in America and First Nations in Canada overrepresented among our nations’ poor?

Perhaps if you eliminate the correlation of race and poverty, you will find that there is no correlation between race and crime.

To correct the ex-mayor of New York City, what Rudy Giuliani meant to say was: 

The white police officers wouldn't be there if you (poor people) weren't killing each other. And, hey, did anybody notice that a lot of poor people in New York happen to be black? I wonder why that is?

Perhaps racism is one of the root causes of poverty and poverty is one of the root causes of criminality.