Irenaeus, Siteadmin, Check users, oversight, Administrators
351,420
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 69:
Line 69: + + + + + +
Irreligious prison population (view source)
Revision as of 14:29, February 26, 2017
, 14:29, February 26, 2017→Atheists in prison: Controversies about statistics
See also: [http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html Prison Incarceration and Religious Preference] at Adherents.com
See also: [http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html Prison Incarceration and Religious Preference] at Adherents.com
The website Christian Rethinker indicated in 2008:
{{Cquote|There are some statistics that atheists love to repeat. One of them is this: “About 8-16% of America’s population are atheists, but only 0.21% of the prison population are.”
This page is apparently their source for that. It gives the numbers for prison inmates, and their reported religious groupings, on 5 March 1997. (I wonder why do no atheist ever mention a more recent study? Is this particular 11-year old study the one with results that best match their agenda?)
But wait a minute. These numbers apparently also say that 19,7% of the prisoners population chose not to answer this question, or was perhaps not asked, or perhaps just ticked [https://christianrethinker.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/76/ a box named “other religious view”] without naming their view in it. Now, the prisoners that were not asked are probably not much different from anyone else. We do not know how many of those were numbered in the sample.
But the prisoners who chose not to answer? It make perfect sense that an atheist will be less likely to honestly answer that question. (It may indirectly affect his chances for parole, for instance.) And with a tick box for “Catholic” or “Muslim”, but none for atheist, it is likely that some atheists will be among those who just tick “other” without filling in the word atheist.<ref>[ https://christianrethinker.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/lies-damned-lies-and-atheists-in-prison/ Lies, damned lies and atheists in prison], Christian Rethinker website, October 6, 2008</ref>}}
On the other hand, the pro-atheism website Humanist.com claims about atheists in U.S. prisons:
On the other hand, the pro-atheism website Humanist.com claims about atheists in U.S. prisons: