In his astute and timeless book, How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff writes, "The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify." This statement is at least as true as it was in 1954 when it was first published. Among the subjects most prone to statistical abuse: criminal justice. Our guest today on Sea Change Radio is Peter Calloway, an outspoken public defender whose Twitter thread about crime in San Francisco went a little bit viral last week. In the first half of our two-part conversation, we discuss the significance of US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is not only the first Black woman to serve on the highest court, but also the first public defender. We also talk about the role of the public defender's office and why people tend to fall for sensationalized crime statistics.

Narrator: This is Sea Change Radio - covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

Peter Calloway: Society has decided I think for fairly obvious reasons to focus on these other crimes right we have chosen we've made it a choice a political choice a cultural choice to focus on certain crimes and not others right even what we define legally as crime is a is a political choice but then there's another choice made among those things that we've labeled crime which are the ones that we're going to devote law enforcement resources toward which are the ones that were going to prosecute and what are we going to ignore.

Narrator: In his astute and timeless book, How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff writes, “The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify.” This statement is at least as true as it was in 1954 when it was first published. Among the subjects most prone to statistical abuse: criminal justice. Our guest today on Sea Change Radio is Peter Calloway, an outspoken public defender whose Twitter thread about crime in San Francisco went a little bit viral last week. In the first half of our two-part conversation, we discuss the significance of US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is not only the first Black woman to serve on the highest court, but also the first public defender. We also talk about the role of the public defender’s office and why people tend to fall for sensationalized crime statistics.

Alex Wise: I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Peter Calloway. Peter is a public defender in San Francisco. Peter, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

Peter Calloway: Alex, thank you so much I'm happy to be here I guess I should note that I am speaking to you today you know in my personal capacity not as a representative of my office but again thanks for inviting me on.

Alex Wise: First why don't you explain to our listeners what a public defender does and what motivates attorneys to become public defenders.

Peter Calloway:  So, you know, a public defender is a lawyer who is appointed by the court to represent somebody who's been accused of a crime that could conceivably result in them being jailed and who cannot afford to hire their own attorney they've existed you know essentially since the middle of the last century I won't go into the origins necessarily but the main point is you know there are attorneys there are defense attorneys and among the defense attorneys or public defenders and a lot of people who choose to become public defenders are doing it. You know because they feel sort of a a connection to the sort of disenfranchised right people who have been in various ways you know harms by our society cast aside and you know so...