Statistics

I recently spent some time research prison statistics and started to get confused.
You see, statistics can be interpreted many different ways.
Here's what I mean...

1.) While in the year 1996 only 2% of Canadian population was made up of Aboriginal adults, 17% of Canadian inmates in correctional facilities were aboriginal.
Different conclusions to draw:

a.) Aboriginals, for whatever reason, are more likely to commit serious enough crimes to end up in correctional facilities than other races in Canada are.
 b.) Canada's justice system is corrupt and against aboriginals, and therefore gives them a harder sentence.
 c.) Individual police men are more likely to stop criminal activity and file a report when performed by an aboriginal then another race.
                       - This brings up another point. If this is true, is this because the Aboriginal population of the police force is smallest and the majority of Canadians have something against Aboriginals? or do different nationalities tend to stick up for each other?


2.) Although in the year 2003 American citizens only made up 5% of the world population, an astonishing 22% of the worlds prisoners are in the United States of America.

a.) Americans, whether this be racial or influential, are more likely to commit crimes then other countries are.
b.) The U.S.A's criminal justice system is more harsh than others.
c.) The individual police men in the States are more alert and/or attentive to their jobs than police in other countries.



So when you're reading statistics, think about who is presenting them. The U.S justice system would probably tell you that they have higher prison population because their doing a great job, whereas a battling country might use it as an opportunity to talk about how awful Americans are. Aboriginals may be quick to say that they end up in prison because of corruption in the criminal justice system, but another race might talk about how criminally inclined Aboriginals are, or that they come from worse backgrounds or worse families and that perpetuates the crime rate problem.