The information in Exercise
49
is rather dated. Use the following to determine whether things have improved since then. In April
2003
, Amnesty International issued a study on race and death penalty. The following quote is from that study:
“The population of the USA is approximately
75
percent white and
12
percent black. Since
1976
, blacks have been six to seven times more likely to be murdered than whites, with the result that blacks and whites of murder in about equal numbers. Yet,
80
percent of the more than
840
people put to death in the USA since
1976
were convicted of crimes involving white victims, compared to the 13 percent who were convicted of killing blacks. Less than four percent of the executions carried out since
1977
in the USA were for crimes involving Hispanic victims. Hispanics represent about
12
percent of the US population. Between
1993
and
1999
, the recorded murder rate for Hispanics was more than 40 percent higher than the national homicide rate.”
(Source: Amnesty International. “United States of America: Death by discrimination-the continuing role of race in capital cases.” AMR
51
/
046
/
2003
)
a. In the above quote, what conditional probability is
80
%
? That is, find events
A
and
B
such that
p
(
A
|
B
)
=
80
%
.
b. In the above quote, what conditional probability is
13
%
? That is, find events
C
and
D
such that
p
(
C
|
D
)
=
13
%
.
c. Use the information in Exercise
49
to compute
p
(
A
|
B
)
for
1981
.
d. Use the information in Exercise
49
to compute
p
(
C
|
D
)
for
1981
.
e. Have things improved since
1981
? Justify your answer.