Trust your instincts

As Obi Wan almost said: "Let go your conscious self and act on instinct.  Your news articles, government agencies and other organisations can deceive you, don't trust them."

My brother Andrew (@andysstudy) has been studiously following this advice since 1977, and sent me this tweet:

See below. There are 73m children (u15) in EU I find it hard to believe 1:73 goes missing every year? http://www.euronews.com/2012/10/01/has-anyone-seen-my-child/

Reading too much into one number

The BBC points out that deaths from road accidents in the UK increased last year for the first time in 10 years.  In total 1,901 people were killed during 2011, which is 51 more than in 2010.  This is certainly not good.

But is it surprising, in a statistical sense?

Non-existent recidivism statistics wrongly reported

This article from the BBC News website caught my eye today, headlined "Reoffending rates reach record level".  It also says that 

Ministry of Justice officials say the figures show a "clear trend" of a rising re-offending rate.

The Independent makes some similar claims.  The phrase "re-offending rate" is simple enough: it's the proportion of people who, having been convicted of a crime, go on to commit another one within a year, or within five years, or whatever.  Right?