Political Science 138
Quantitative Reasoning   

HW1b: OLD ASSIGNMENT DO NOT USE

What's the evidence?

Question: Is the Death Penalty Racially Biased?

On Wednesday, you will be assigned to find statistical evidence to either
support or dispute the claim that the death penalty is racially biased.

Note, for this exercise we are not looking for the original data, but for the data used in arguments on each side of the question.

Using Google, search for websites that and newspaper stories arguing on one side of the question or the other that cite statistical evidence.

Summarize each piece of numerical evidence in a sentence or two.

For each summary, provide a link to the web page that provided the data.

"X percent of the persons sentenced to death were XXX, even though XXX constitutes X percent of [blank]".  http:\\wwww.website.com

Email the file as an attachment to gmklass@ilstu.edu before class on Friday.  Bring the file to class on Friday (email it to yourself, or bring a thumbdrive).

Consider:

ACLU evidence of racial bias in death penalty cases (google)
Race of persons exonerated in DP cases (google)
Race of victims in DP cases (google)
Racial bias in jury selection in DP. cases (google)
News stories on racial bias (Lexis\Nexis)
The race of persons sentenced to death. (Bureau of Justice Statistics -under corrections)
The race of persons actually executed, length of time on death row (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
The race of the victims in capital cases. (Bureau of Justice Statistics - under homicide trends)
The race of homicide offenders. (Bureau of Justice Statistics)