The import of terror

[mahnmut]

Rise in homicides by US Iraq war vets

A survey of public records by The New York Times found at least 121 U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing or were charged with one after returning home from duty, the newspaper reported on Saturday. {Reuters}

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Who said it's something unique. I certainly didn't. But that's not the point.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Problem solved, then.

[ddrcrono.livejournal.com]

Even the number that 90% more incidents involving veterans have happened since the war is somewhat questionable, since there are now more veterans because of the war, particularily people in the age range where crimes of passion are generally going to be more common. (High risk age is basically 18-25, right?)

Anyway, what really would be useful here is to have a simple number like this:

% of Iraq war veterans who have been charged with these crimes.
% of American citizens who have been charged with similar crimes.

Having a control group is always nice...because, regardless of Iraq, some of those people definitely would have committed crimes anyway, just based on the statistics of average people...you need a basis for comparison. (I guess the problem is that you've got a newspaper trying to do statistician work)