EXPLORING STATISTICAL RELATIONSHIPS ABOUT CRIME

－Please read them in the order below. They are:
1.“Household Poverty and Non-Fatal Violent Victimization, 2008-2012”
2.“Don’t Ignore the Haters”
3.“DOJ Study: More than 250,000 Hate Crimes…”
4.“The Truth about Hate in America”

－The last two of these readings are very directly in debate, one saying that hate crimes are vastly underreported, the other saying that hate crimes are decreasing and aren’t a big deal. Your task is to write a 500-700 word essay that summarizes this debate and takes a stand on it. Your essay must:
1.Summarize the arguments for either side.
2.Describe who is making these arguments and how their status/qualities/credentials might affect your view of the argument. You may want to do a bit of research on the side about these sources, but you are not expected to do more than glance at the source’s websites. Note that the author of the last piece, David Horowitz, is a very, very conservative figure (though he was once very liberal!).
a) The “Truth about Hate” piece comes from his website, http://www.frontpagemag.com/author/david-horowitz
b) The “DOJ Study” piece comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is on the opposite side of most issues from David Horowitz: https://www.splcenter.org/.
3.Evaluate which side you see as more persuasive, with reference to the data exercise and Household Poverty piece if you find them helpful, and with reference to your opinion of their credentials/credibility. You are not required to look for further evidence; the key question is whether you can see reasons in these sources to see one side of this debate as more compelling than the other.