tim's experiment

Interesting letter in this morning’s paper from one Jacob Lam Hay-sing, who describes himself as CEO of the Christian Zheng Sheng Association. It is not for me to dispute the propriety of a Christian organisation having a CEO. Perhaps the line on money-changers has changed. Mr Lam was trying to put some wind in the sails of the misleadingly named RESCUE proposal, which basically seeks to allow the police to compel people to provide them with samples of body fluids. The usual conditions about reasonable suspicion will be imposed, no doubt, with the usual total lack of success.

Mr Lam has an interesting way with statistics. A study conducted in the Christian Zeng Sheng College revealed, he says, that most students had lured more than five others to abuse drugs. In itself this is a junk report. Accounts of surveys should be accompanied by some account of the methodology – sample size, selection method, etc. This particular figure also presents some credibility problems. If we take more than half to mean 51 per cent, then there are going to be at least five lurings for each of the remaining 49 per cent. Let us suppose, for example, that there are 40 people in your class at the College. That means 21 of you are luring five people each, which in turn implies 105 victims. But there are only 19 people left in the class. And other classes presumably have the same problem. So we have to imagine the student body of Zeng Sheng College spreading the drug habit assiduously among the general population. But if that was going on I fancy Mr Lam would not be boasting about it.

More interesting figures come later. “Figures show police conducted about 2,170,000 searches from 2008 to 2012. About 22,000 cases were cracked resulting from these interceptions and body searches. Some 219 complaints were filed against the police.” This proves, in Mr Lam’s view, that police “only perform duties with reasonable force. They are not abusers of power.” These figures prove nothing of the sort. The number of complaints is certainly low. This is susceptible to a variety of interpretations and I am quite prepared to believe that one of them is the fact that most searches are carried out in a polite and non-violent way. But the figure by itself proves nothing. The figure of more than 2 million searches also proves nothing, though it strongly suggests that the police are abusers of power, because such searches are supposed to be based on reasonable suspicion that a crime has taken place. What the figures do prove by simple division is that for every search which resulted in a “case cracked” there were 97 which did not. This reinforces the belief that the many fine features of our police force do not include a sensitive eye for suspicious circumstances. People are being stopped because they fit a profile. No doubt if the taking of body fluids is allowed the same will apply.

Mr Lam concludes that “a consensus has been reached”. I take it that he means a consensus in favour of the proposed new measure. He does not say among whom the consensus has been reached. The mathematically challenged God squad?