Justice Not As Blind As Previously Thought 256
NotSoHeavyD3 writes "I doubt this is much of a surprise but apparently Cornell University did a study that seems to show you're more likely to get convicted if you're ugly. From the article: 'According to a Cornell University study, unattractive defendants are 22 percent more likely to be convicted than good-looking ones. And the unattractive also get slapped with harsher sentences — an average of 22 months longer in prison.'"
Did they adjust for meth and crack use? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did they adjust for meth and crack use? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah.
I mean, he may get an extra 6 months because of that big scar on his cheek, but that big scar on his cheek shows that he got into a knife fight at some point. Perhaps keeping individuals prone to that kind of behavior off the streets for a few extra months isn't exactly a bad thing.
Re:Did they adjust for meth and crack use? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah because theres no possibility someone caused it without any involvement from him.
Besides, how do you think some businessman with nice tan would compare to some overweight person who person who sits on computer all day long? Not looking good for us slashdotters.
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As an underweight person who sits on the computer all day I see this as all good news. My glass is all full.
Re:Did they adjust for meth and crack use? (Score:5, Funny)
As an underweight person who sits on the computer all day I see this as all good news. My glass is all full.
That's because you never eat or drink you silly skinny person! Now, start drinking from that glass and eating from your plate before you wither away!! Here at /. we have ways to deal with such "full glasses". Now, DRINK!
You can get glassed any time (Score:2)
Just glance at the wrong woman at the wrong time.
Having a facial scar does mean they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, beyond that you don't know crap.
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One can have statistical correlation which is neither necessary nor sufficient...
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Re:Did they adjust for meth and crack use? (Score:5, Informative)
According to TFA, the researchers used theoretical juries of undergrads, and merely swapped the photo associated with them. I haven't seen the photos myself, but researchers usually use a distribution of attractive or unattractive photos that don't include "disfigured in a bar fight" and "barely cognizant heroin addict."
Of course, being a theoretical study on paper does mean that real-world influences could be much lower... or higher. For example, any signs of remorse in the courtroom, performance on the stand, etc might be much more significant to the overall judgement process. Or maybe the juries take real courtroom activity more seriously. Or maybe undergrads all just need to get laid.
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According to TFA, the researchers used theoretical juries of undergrads, and merely swapped the photo associated with them.
No, it doesn't say that. It says,
It never says if the photograph was real or fictitious. However, using the same case study with different pictures would point strongly toward this being a cause and not just a correlation.
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In reality beautiful people are more likely to have more money, which means they can probably afford better lawyers too. Humans (and not just humans) are suckers for beauty, such is life.
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According to TFA, the researchers used theoretical juries of undergrads, and merely swapped the photo associated with them.
I hear the picture they used of Hillary Clinton got life.
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Your sarcasm is misplaced and disingenuous.
"Real" scientists welcome factual challenges.
However, the GP stated inaccurate facts in order to claim theories that have obvious personal relevance.
If researchers had to answer to every quack who thought they had a clue, they would never get any research done, which, confoundingly, often makes the quacks think they're correct. :-)
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The result isn't actually that surprising. A similar result was mentioned in the book Blink [amazon.com] that was popular a while ago. The study mentioned in Blink showed that juries were very sensitive to the race of the accused, and that black defendants had a much higher conviction rate, even with very similar evidence.
For a beautiful example of how it works subconsciously, have a look at the Implicit Association Tests [harvard.edu] from Harvard.
Re:Did they adjust for meth and crack use? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The definition of "White Trash" differs from person to person because it's generally a perjorative, but in general:
- Low on the Socioeconomic ladder, lives in trailor parks or shitty apartments.
- Embraces a lifestyle that keeps them and their children low on the socioeconomic ladder. Usually uneducated past High School, prefers alcohol or drug abuse to working long hours, fails to take care of their children, etc.
- Has white skin color.
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Pardon me, I'm being unclear here.
It's not that people should ALWAYS work long hours, it's that sometimes (Especially if you have no education) it's necessary to work long hours in order to achieve a higher standard of living for yourself or your children. People under the "White Trash" label wouldn't make that sacrifice. What could have been a college fund for their kids would instead either never be earned in the first place, or wasted on drugs or alcohol.
yeah, well (Score:5, Funny)
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Shoulda thought of that before being born ugly.
More propaganda from the left-wing, politically-correct, pro-ugly/fugly/trans-ugly movement.
Wake up, people. Ugly is a lifestyle choice! I'm so sick of the "ugly agenda" being forced on normal society by these radicals, demanding to be married, adopt kids, etc. They're destroying the institution of marriage!
Good hint for slashdot users (Score:5, Funny)
who are in jail and are wondering why their prison term was longer than the average.
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Terry Childs, is that you?
Re:Good hint for slashdot users (Score:5, Funny)
Hans weeps quietly into his pillow.
And this is why... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the plus side, we could spend some time discussing phrenological theories of the "physiognomy of the criminal type" which are always amusing.
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The statues of justice are always blindfolded, not blind...
You know how blind people often wear sunglasses to hide their useless eyes? Guess hat they wore back before sunglasses were invented. Go on, guess...
Re:And this is why... (Score:4, Funny)
Lampshades?
I'm doomed. (Score:5, Funny)
:-|
Lemme be the first... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time a study comes out, twelvity million Slashdotters start chanting "Correlation!=Causation". None actually read the article. In fact, most have their rant typed out long before the story hits slashdot, and simply cut and paste into the comment box.
So, in the interest of keeping up this fine tradition, I offer the following:
1) Ugly people are more likely to actually commit the crime. Makes sense. Pretty people are less likely to need to do a crime as they are more likely to get good employement.
2) Committing a crime MAKES you ugly. Far fetched? Maybe. But I am sure those stupid researchers who only get by on grant money never thought of such a thing.
Clearly, I a faceless Slashdotter am more capable of analyzing the situation without actually reading the article, or giving it more than 20 seconds of thought.
Can the rest of my Slashdot bretheren help support my contentions?
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Well...
The study consisted of 169 Cornell psychology undergraduates, who were classified as either rational or emotional decision-makers through an online survey. They were then given case studies of defendants, complete with a photograph and profile, were read jury instructions and listened to the cases' closing arguments.
In serious cases with strong evidence, there was little difference in the conviction rate between attractive and unattractive defendants. But in more minor cases, with ambiguous evidence, jurors were more biased toward the good-looking.
So the study was of 169 people who were classified by taking an online survey. They were then given mock juries.
Interesting point: what is attractive and unattractive? Were the mock-jury members ASKED if the defendant was unattractive? ...
Perhaps there is a correlation of attractive/unattractive-ness with other traits which were what the jury members were *actually* basing their decision on?
Seems to me that anytime you start saying people decided something because of X, you are stepping into a very
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The study consisted of 169 Cornell psychology undergraduates
Ah well there's the relevancy problem. "Everyone knows" the lawyers on both sides like juries full of gullible / uneducated people without pre-existing biases, so they always try to dismiss folks "in the business" like lawyers, cops, also intelligent folks like engineers, doctors, scientists. The odds that a psychologist makes it to a jury seem extraordinarily low, unless in a statistical anomaly the rest of the jury is absolutely packed with supremacists and retired cops so they ran out of quota of peopl
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Re:Lemme be the first... (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. I propose that Slashdot start scanning for people tagging stories with "correlation!=causation", and automatically insert "I'm a fucking moron!" into their signature line. Or the like.
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Re:Lemme be the first... (Score:4, Informative)
But since correlation isn't causation you'd have no idea as to whether or not the commenter is a "fucking moron."
If someone tags a story with "correlation!=causation" (c!=c) or attempts to use that phrase as an attack on the story's premise, that is prima facie evidence that the person in question is, indeed, a fucking moron (FM). Not all FMs parrot c!=c (PCC) at every opportunity, of course, but only FMs do so. The correlation between FM-ness and c!=c parroting is therefore quite large, certainly large enough to be significant.
In the presence of a significant correlation between X and Y, there are three causal possibilities: either X causes Y, Y causes X, or there exists a third factor, Z, which causes both X and Y. Let X = PCC and Y = FM, and break down the possibilities:
X ==> Y: PCC makes you an FM. This seems unlikely. We could test it, of course, but there's no causal mechanism.
Z ==> X,Y: certainly possible, but the universe of possible Zs is pretty large. No need to complicate the hypothesis -- Occam's Razor and all that -- when ...
Y ==> X: FMs are incapable of understanding statistics, since they're, well, FMs. And PCC depends on a profound lack of understanding of statistics. Ta-da! There's your causal mechanism and your significant correlation.
The remainder of the problem is left as an exercise for the reader. If you have trouble, there's a hint in my .sig, or see the TA during office hours.
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You just happen to love Microsoft. Why do you hate freedom?
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Hilarious. You deliver a mild rant about people spouting off "correlation!=causation" without so much as reading the article to see if the researches took that into account, all the while your post makes it obvious that you yourself didn't so much as read the article and yet your get modded insightful and informative. Sometimes I think the mods don't even try.
The researchers didn't use real court room data, they created mock criminals, attaching different pictures to the same information about the case an
Please let me also point out.... (Score:2)
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Any time a study comes out, twelvity million Slashdotters start chanting "Correlation!=Causation". None actually read the article.
Correlation!=Causation: they may have been chanting that even if they DID read the article. Or if there was no study talking about causations or correlations. In fact, I'm pretty sure some of them just wander the streets mumbling "correlation is not causation" when they're not online. I mean, I do.
Well Duh! (Score:5, Funny)
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You mean how much the fact(?) that people expect from movies and TV shows to portray those who commit crimes as being ulgy?
BAM said the lady. (Score:2)
Next they'll be saying that poor people and minorities end up in jail more often.
And a lot of the times people are going BACK to jail, and it's probably hard to stay good-looking long in jail.
(Although eye of the beholder etc.)
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unattractive = Minorities and poor whitefolk
good-looking = rich white folk
But wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:But wait... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
because the FBI was also looking at him for terrorism, and they couldn't find anything on him either... which tells me he didn't do it, and was just not mentally developed in that area of his life that he saw nothing wrong in sleeping in the same bed as someone's kid.
from his upbringing I'm surprised any of them turned out to be well adjusted people.
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The other comments are better, but I'll toss money into the equation.
You have money, you don't get convicted unless you rely on something other than money, such as true innocence. Money is more reliable than true innocence.
Re:But wait... (Score:5, Funny)
Possible other factors (Score:4, Insightful)
From an Ev Psych perspective, ugliness is a possible marker of some kind of degeneracy, and our negative reactions to the ugly are likely a gene-regulatory mechanism (conformity's hand - that thing in side of us that makes us think "FREAK" when we see people who can't walk correctly, who are missing limbs or deformed, etc - the whole attraction of "freak shows" in circuses was to engage this, although in modern times we aim for a more compassionate society and try not to engage or mention this anymore).
Judges, police, the boss considering promoting someone, they're all human, and unless they use some objective metrics as their primary means for choice, attractiveness will accidentally factor in.
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From an Ev Psych perspective, ugliness is a possible marker of some kind of degeneracy,..
There's pictures spread all over the web of a guy who I believe had conviction(s?) for sexual assault. If you know the photos I'm talking about, they don't look like a real person. He appears to be very, very short, with an oversized head, crooked teeth and a completely bashed-in-looking face. Doesn't actually look real. Someone surely knows what I'm talking about and can post links.
Well hang on a minute... (Score:2)
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Ask your mom (Score:2)
Do I need to fill this in?
I believe it. (Score:5, Insightful)
A woman at a grocery store near here was in charge of counting money from the tills and putting it in the safe. Over the course of a year she managed to steal over $100,000 in cash by doctoring the electronic sales records. The managers noticed, but she was too hot, so they routinely fired+blackballed the ugliest cashiers for stealing. Well, she finally got caught. The judge gave her a stern warning, no jail time, no probation. And she didn't have to pay back, she got to keep the $100,000. Judge even called her a wonderful person, said she has no chance of reoffending, and has a bright future as a university student and it would be wrong of him to get in the way of her! Left implied is that she gives good head, I guess.
I wish I was hot enough to steal 100 Gs and get to KEEP IT ALL with no other punishment.
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I don't know the case but it might be that because the managers let her do the stealing (for whatever reason, maybe she was blackmailing, sharing the wealth, romantically involved or she had family ties), all the previous occurrences that were documented but not acted upon were dismissed. If you let somebody steal from you, you can't really expect them to be punished whenever it suits you - you actually have to document the occurrence, fire the person, notify the authorities and sue for damages. If you docu
Re:I believe it. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Back in the mid 90s, I worked for one of those slick, cool, handsome and nattily dressed business owners who embezzled over four million dollars from several businesses including the one I was employed at.
It only came to light when his pyramid investment schemes crashed and our paychecks bounced.
He's one of the fortunate ones - he's only doing about twenty years in a fedpen. I say fortunate because there were many people on his payroll who would gladly have terminated
Throw money in the equation? (Score:2)
The Ugly Truth (Score:2)
What about the lawyer (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, sometimes (Score:2)
Sometimes [rhapsody.com] justice really is blind.
How did they determine who is ugly? (Score:2, Interesting)
Did they start the study of a "Hot or Not" prisoner website?
Like the say in the auto sales game... "Theres an ass for every seat"
I think that applies here too. Some people are turned on by strangely shaped faces, legs, asses... midgets (where are my old videos?) ....
This is way too subjective to be taken seriously...
Ugly in the eye of the beholder? (Score:2)
I read this /. post shortly after reading a story on CNN.com about young children and race. http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/doll.study.parents/index.html?hpt=C2 [cnn.com]
Is it any surprise that white children pick the darker skinned and declare them to be "ugly"? And in light of earlier comments in this thread: correlation or causation?
Treated ugly, act ugly (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe because people are cruel to ugly people so they lash back at society more often. People choose to surround themselves with good looking people, so ugly people miss out on opportunities, friendships, jobs, advancement, and other facets of social life. Not feeling good about life makes them not want to smile, which just makes them uglier.
When was the last time to saw an ugly CEO, politician, salesperson, or "employee of the month"? Ugly people could be famous musicians, but that was before MTV. And without success people sometimes resort to crime.
So there is probably a greater proportion of guilty ugly people, but the innocent ugly definitely have a tougher battle than the good looking ones. The charming crooks tend to evade suspicion from the beginning, so more "ugly" suspects will get picked up off the street, possibly just because the forensic artist lacks talent and all his sketches look ugly. Crime victims tend to describe their assailants as "ugly", because, let's face it, even good-looking people look ugly when they're trying to strangle you.
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Funny)
Did anyone consider that the ugly may commit more crimes?
No, because typically politicians are not ugly.
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Seriously, if you see them on TV, the soft lighting and makeup does wonders, but in real life........lets hope they don't find a jury.
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Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Informative)
Read TFA please. The study was done with students at Cornell, who were asked to give their verdict after reading the closing arguments from the trial. The pictures of ugly and non-ugly people were inserted into these case studies, so that the same facts were presented as though they were about two different people.
The ugly might very well commit more crimes, but this study eliminates that as a confounding factor.
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So what it really says is, 'Cornell students are more likely to punish you if you are ugly'.
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Though, generally (throughout the world), such samples include people who are disproportionally more likely to serve justice to others (and who are, ultimatelly, chosen by the societies to do so)
Slow down, cowboy (Score:3, Insightful)
The study was done with students at Cornell, who were asked to give their verdict after reading the closing arguments from the trial. The pictures of ugly and non-ugly people were inserted into these case studies, so that the same facts were presented as though they were about two different people.
The students read the closing arguments.
They were shown a picture of the "defendant."
They did not spend days or weeks in a courtroom. Listening to testimony. Viewing exhibits. Making their decision. They did not
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the methodology is so flawed I don't know where to start ... What a surprise ! May be not the same happens, or not to the same degree, when the accused actually moves, talks... and the photo is NOT the only "feeling" of him/her the jurors get ?
- youngsters are likely much more sensitive to looks than more mature people. I know I changed that way.
- cutting the inputs down to case summary+photo emphasizes looks
- maybe over the course of a trial, feelings take a back seat to facts ? I get a feeling the study w
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Yes, maybe this doesn't matter at all. You go ahead and prove that. Meanwhile, the evidence suggests that looks do matter, just like we already know race and gender matters.
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No, he doesn't have to prove it. The burden of proof is on the one doing the asserting. He's pointed out that the scientists failed in their assertion; they've proven something OTHER than what they claim to.
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the scientists have shown an indicative bias in a simplified controlled study. If you want a more concise conclusion, you'll either have to wait for someone to perform further study with a different sampling of people/environments, or you can formulate another hypothesis and provide some test data.
Making the exact opposite statement is equally untested in a scientific sense and also requires proof. Many scientific theories can never be proven with 100% certainty, however, by definition, they must be falsifiable in some way, and in this case provide a numeric analyses that can be refined with improved test methods and data.
What the students have done is formulate a hypothetical argument and provided data to support that position. If further confounding variables are established, then the confidence in the hypothesis is weakened, but doesn't automatically default to an opposite viewpoint. In this case, it merely defaults to a lower confidence of accuracy. The conclusion is what it is, and does support the hypothesis. If contrary evidence is provided, then the hypothesis may be weakened to the point where it does support the opposing argument.
A follow-up study to this one could include a random sampling of people from the greater population. Beyond that, they could use actors. Beyond that, they could provide analyses of numerous real case studies and normalise against various background variables. etc.
At some point, the confidence level of the original hypothesis will increase to a point that extrapolating into the real justice system could produce highly accurate results.
The article author implies that the result extrapolates to the real justice system. However, the actual scientific study is really about human reasoning being influenced by emotional bias. So, I suspect the author of the article has taken liberties to generate their own more sensationalist conclusion.
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What some people here are trying to argue is that if ugly people commit more crimes, then being ugly is itself a piece of evidence, so they the burden of other, factual evidence is less.
I have conservative friends who think this way. DNA evidence springs some black guy from jail after serving 10 years for a rape he didn't commit, and my friend says, oh well, look at him, he probably did other crimes for
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Insightful)
if i see another +5 insightful "correlation != causation" my brain is going to fucking explode.
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Someone could post a study 'finds putting hand in fire causes burns! and 5 minutes later someone will post the correlation!=causation tag regardless.
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Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:4, Insightful)
correlation != causation c'mon guys. Mod me up. You know you want to see it, too.
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Nobody even fucking said that being ugly caused you to commit more crimes.
Wrong. Hatta did (well, he implied it by asking a leading question.)
if i see another +5 insightful "correlation != causation" my brain is going to fucking explode.
Methinks you need a software upgrade. Maybe this [slashdot.org] might help you. :)
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Funny)
OK, but how do we know that your brain exploding isn't causing these posts to be moderated highly?
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oh for a modpoint...
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Agreed, and on top of this, the research in question was a designed experiment with control & experimental groups, which does in fact establish causation. The Slashdot "correlation != causation" crowd is almost uniformly ignorant about what they're saying.
A quote from Neil A. Weiss, Introductory Statistics, 7E, p. 22: "In an *observational study*, researchers simply observe characteristics and take measurements, as in a sample survey. In a *designed experiment*, researchers impose treatments and control
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if i see another +5 insightful "correlation != causation" my brain is going to fucking explode.
Then you'd be really ugly. A judge would probably slap you with ten to life just for jaywalking.
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butte ugly serial killers
Um, are they ugly, or are they buttes?
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I don't know if that was unintentionally stupid or intentionally funny.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/butte [merriam-webster.com]
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In this case, they presented actual crimes to sample juries, and swapped the actual photos of the defendant with either attractive or unattractive images. So, the "ugly people commit more crimes" angle is not a factor here.
But, it is still fair to question whether "169 Cornell psychology undergraduates" is an accurate reflection of what most juries look like (no pun intended).
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So is this the reason why we see so many female teachers going off so lightly when they have sex with student boys in comparison to their male colleagues ?
I don;t like seeing claims like this made without a shred of proof.
Show me the number of women charged. The number of men charged. The age of the boy or girl. The age of the teacher. Other aggravating or mitigating factors.
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There are lots of studies on this.
Here is just one of them.
Holland, etc al. 2009
http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2009/articles/1439.pdf [scientificjournals.org]
Female average sentence 11.60 years
Male average sentence 28.05 years
And if the victim and perpetrators are both male, the mean sentence is over 45 years. (this usually includes very long probationary periods ~20 years)
The mean sentence for first degree murder is currently around 34 years.
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You're a statistical insanity. (Score:2)
It's talking about DEFENDANTS -- as in people already arrested and charged.
If police, prosecutors, judges, and juries were doing their jobs even close to right, and ugly people were just more likely to commit crimes, the arrest rate would be higher, but the conviction rate would not be significantly different from that of any other group.
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I think I'm not good enough, or attractive enough, so I commit crimes?
"Self esteem" is a modern, lofty-sounding excuse for poor behaviour. It's another vague concept about which our society's dung-beetle PhDs (Piled High and Deeper) can maunder and publish to ensure gainful employment.
Mental hypochondriacs then catch the meme-virus and suddenly they are victims of a cruel world, imagining things that never really happened to them as "root causes" of their unhappiness.