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Surveys are the most powerful sales agents on the planet. They sell not by overtly asking for an order, but by creating the "persuasive facts" that decisions are based on. Call me skeptical, but having crafted hundreds of surveys that sell, when I hear a "persuasive fact" I want to know who created it, what bias it has, and what its creators are trying to sell me. Here is one such "fact" I've heard for years, most recently during the 2008 Presidential elections: "There are more back men in prison than in college."Do you think this is true? This "fact" appeared in a 2002 study created by the "Justice Policy Institute", whose stated mission is "to promote effective solutions to social problems and to be dedicated to ending society's reliance on incarceration." In the report compared two government statistics: In 2000, there were 791,600 black men behind bars while only 603,032 were in college. The numbers dramatized the shameful condition of American black men at the time. But using this "fact" is not appropriate today:First, it is no longer true:The same government statistics released in 2005 showed 864,000 black men in college and only 802,000 in prison. Still terrible numbers, but progress had been made, and a small majority now go to college. Second, The "More black men in prison than college" statement misleads because, from a frequency point of view, it is an apples to oranges comparison. Attending college and going to jail are different life experiences that happen in very time frames in a lifetime. A majority of people, black or white, go to college between ages 18 to 24 whereas the "opportunity" to go to prison can happen at any age. The black male population of 2000 had a very high frequency of incarceration. If you compare their frequency of attending college, which would only happen in a four year window, to their frequency of attending prison, which could happen anytime during a lifetime, the results will be highly skewed toward prison. Take this 2007 quote from then Presidential candidate, John Edwards: "We cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating - pretty soon we're not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They're all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two."Even as basic the statement was true back in 2000, Edwards is taking the comparison to mean things it does not. While the numbers of young black men in college and jail themselves were accurate, because college occurs only in a four year window, the choice between the two is a NOT a lifelong option, as Edwards implies. Working with the 2005 statistics, the fact checkers at the Washington Post did an "apples to apples" comparison of just college age black men, in college and prison, with a very different result. "According to 2005 Census Bureau statistics, the male African-American population of the United States aged between 18 and 24 numbered 1,896,000. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 106,000 African-Americans in this age group were in federal or state prisons at the end of 2005. .. If you add the numbers in local jail (measured in mid-2006), you arrive at a grand total of 193,000 incarcerated young Black males, or slightly over 10 percent.According to the same census data, 530,000 of these African-American males, or twenty eight percent, were enrolled in colleges or universities (including two-year-colleges) in 2005. That is five times the number of young black men in federal and state prisons and two and a half times the total number incarcerated."If you make the "fact" about black men an apples to apples comparison by limiting the sample to just back males of college age, the remaining fact just doesn't sell:"There are two and a half times more college age black males attending college, than there are in prison."Yawn. So here we are. This "fact", first presented almost 10 years ago is still in active use, and influencing decisions even though it is not actually true anymore. Although once accurate, the "fact" was often used to misrepresent conditions in first place. Again, I state that surveys are the most powerful sales agents on the planet. If you are not using them to advocate your organizations ideas and products, well, call me skeptical again. Read the Washington Post fact check report