• sexy_peach@feddit.org
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        18 hours ago

        I thought the states were being compared to other countries. Didn’t look properly on the phone.

        • LwL@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          They are, and I agree it’s misleading. It’s implying that it’s somehow shocking that the individual states of the county with the highest incarceration rate in the world also have a high incarceration rate. If it was absolute numbers, it would maybe make a point. As it is, it’s stating the extremely obvious and framing it as “look, it’s even worse than you thought”.

          • sexy_peach@feddit.org
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            8 hours ago

            Yes but that doesn’t really say much. We know it’s bad in the US. If all German states were bad that would still only tell you that in average it’s bad in Germany

            • pyre@lemmy.world
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              1 minute ago

              not really. the fact that Louisiana has nearly double the rate of Oregon is significant. so is the fact that racist southern states are at the top and are the ones beating the us average.

    • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      How is a per-capita incarceration rate, with a reference to the superset included directly on the plot, misleading? Other than including more than El Salvador for the sake of external reference, which is almost certainly a size issue.

      • sexy_peach@feddit.org
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        18 hours ago

        I thought the states were being compared to other countries. Didn’t look properly on the phone.

        • then_three_more@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          They are (which is the point) the countries are in orange USA (as an overall average) and el Salvador are the only countries that make it on to the list.

          • sexy_peach@feddit.org
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            7 hours ago

            Well yes because the US as a whole has a high number. If you added cities they would have even more in the high numbers. What’s the point about that?

            • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              Because US states have populations and areas comparable to other countries. Just the US topping the charts is expected. How many states you have to get through to see other countries is interesting.

              • sexy_peach@feddit.org
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                16 minutes ago

                See? This makes it look like it’s as misleading as I said. This is prisoners per 100.000, that means it doesn’t matter how populous a state or country is. That’s exactly why comparing states with countries is misleading. For every state that has a higher number than the US average there’s states that have a lower number.