Charlotte Pritchard
speaker
152 appearances
15 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2010
last heard Nov 2012
Charlotte Pritchard’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Yes, let's start with the first one, that 99.5% of prosecutions in the US end in convictions.
It can't be true.
Well, the most recent data available is from 2009 in a report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in that 91% of prosecutions were convicted.
No, exactly.
And 9% of the prosecutions were dismissed and less than 1% were acquitted.
So he's really not far off then.
That's amazing.
But... There's always a but with you, Charlotte, and I like that.
These figures are only for the federal system.
It's important to also look at the state courts because they prosecute many more cases.
In them, the latest data available is for 2006, when 68% of felony prosecutions, the more serious crimes, were convicted.
So the state courts convict a lower proportion of defendants?
Yes, and it's also worth noting that in both courts, of those people who are convicted, the vast majority have pleaded guilty.
Well, Japan's conviction rate is around 99.9%, according to a few academic papers we found, and the UK's was around 80% in 2011.
But we should be wary of making international comparisons here.
Data in this area are incredibly difficult to compare because every country has such a different justice system.
Also, it's hard to know how countries measure their statistics, what they take as the starting point of a case and how it's concluded.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has some international figures on prosecutions and convictions, but a quick glance immediately shows you the problems.
The statistics say that Canada has almost a 30 times higher rate of convictions per capita than the US, which strongly suggests there's a problem, especially when you look at the US prison population.
More or Less · Predicting L'Aquila Earthquake: is it right to blame the scientists? · 29 Oct 2012
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Well, our listener is right.
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