zlacker

Well, among other things, if you simply poll people and ask about drug use, white people admit to using drugs at higher rates than black people but are punished much much less frequently for it.

So there are plenty of ways to acquire statistics and data other than through the biased system you are trying to examine. Think of it like going after a computer system that you suspect has been rooted. Do you want to use the system tools from that system to examine itself? Probably not.

>>jellic+(OP)
> Well, among other things, if you simply poll people and ask about drug use, white people admit to using drugs at higher rates than black people but are punished much much less frequently for it.

If I recall correctly, there's a few confounding factors there - one is that survey results for "have you used drugs in the past week" show much higher relative use by African Americans than "have you used drugs in the past year". Another is that in other surveys African Americans were significantly more likely to answer "no" to "are you a convinced felon" given that they were actually convinced felons, so the survey results aren't necessarily accurate anyways.