Opinions wrote:
The crime statistics are out. Of the safest cities in America, 8 are
in no-paddle states. Only 2 are in paddle states. Great news for
no-spanks, right? Well, it depends on how you want to look at things.
With a single exception, all of America's safest *cities* are
relatively small and located near much larger cities with real life big
city problems. The breakdown is as follows.

Newton, Massachusetts is a college town near Boston.

Clarkstown, New York is near New York City. A police force about half
the size of Clarkstown patrols the streets of the Big Apple to keep
crime at a tolerable level!

Amherst, New York is near blue-collar Buffalo.

Mission Viejo, Thousand Oaks, and Lake Forest California are near
gang-ridden Los Angeles.

The exception of Brick, New Jersey is a burg on the Garden State
Parkway.

Troy, Michigan is near the perennial murder capitol of Detroit.

Round Rock, Texas is near Austin.

Cary, North Carolina is near Raleigh.

North Carolina and Texas are both paddle states. California,
Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York are no-paddle states.
The correlation between community safety and no-paddle in schools is
fairly strong.

Yes, we know that.

Meanwhile the most unsafe cities are equally divided. Camden, New
Jersey; Detroit, Michigan; Flint, Michigan; Richmond, Virginia; and
Baltimore, Maryland are in no-paddle states. While St. Louis,
Missouri; Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; Gary, Indiana; and
Birmingham, Alabama are in paddle states. The statistical correlation
between paddling in schools and lack of community safety is relatively
weak.

So you would then claim only similar cities or towns in size should be
comparied. And feel it's significant to claim the cities in the
paddling states, that are comparable in size would show the same low
crime rates?

So, take your pick. This year, the argument can be made either way,
depending on which dataset you choose to use. Then, that is often the
nature of behavior science research.

No, it would not go either way. Both sets of data provided would show a
correlation to non-paddling states to be safest given the even dividing
of most unsafe cities between paddling and non-paddling states. Where
did you get your education for statistical analysis?

What you conveniently leave out is a comparison of how the most unsafe
cities in one set of states compares to the most unsafe in the other
cities, one where paddling is allowed and the other not.

In other words, as the audience used to say on the Tonight Show, "HOW
UNSAFE WERE THEY?"

You do have those figures, right? For they are very significant.

The critical point being "rates" of violent crime and more especially
emergency room records for intake of patients that suffered violent
attacks.

In fact the latter is the best indicator of the true scope of violence
in any region.

Nice try, Observer, but no sale.

Academics are higher in no-paddle states as well. Child abuse is less.
College entries are higher. Across the board, even per capita income,
one is better of in a non-paddling state.

And in time, as you'll come to find out, a total ban on spanking will
produce the same kind of results.

0:-