REAL WORLD TAKEAWAYS

• Specific sets of data on the race of defendants receiving the death penalty can be interpreted to draw opposite conclusions regarding the prevalence of racial bias in sentencing.
• The race of the victim has been shown to impact the likelihood of receiving the death penalty: In Louisiana, murderers of white victims have received the death penalty three times more frequently than have murderers of black victims.

MATH OBJECTIVES

• Interpret two-way frequency tables summarizing categorical data
• Interpret relative frequencies – including joint and conditional frequencies – in the context of the data