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Comment by djt | Hacker News Reader

Is it quite rare though? It would be good to see some figures on that.

It could also be sampling bias playing a part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias

Two does not necessarily make a trend, to be sure. However, if the odds are 1 in 10,000, a small number of incidents quickly become a significant indicator that the way this guy handles cases dramatically increases the likelihood of suicide.

I don't know if any reports have been done on the subject that would be relevant here (specific to federal defendants, as they generally are looking at more time and are more likely to be experiencing jail for the first time than state defendants). However, anectdotally, I know a fair number of criminal defense attorneys, and they all say that it's actually quite rare. It seems that most defense attorneys have never had a criminal client commit suicide.

You assume way too much. I highly doubt that federal defendants are 10 times less likely to commit suicide than the general population in USA.

For me personally two is still waaay to low for it to be considered anything but a fluke.

The general population suicide rate is about 1 in 10,000, which is what the GP quoted. What's your source for saying it's 1 in 1000?

I apparently read his post as 1/100.000.

Two is a pretty low sample for it to be statistically significant.

Anecdotaly, a friend of mine committed suicide and I later found out he was going to jail for robbery.

As I said in the original comment, it could just be a coincidence. However, if the bodies continue to pile up over the years (or more likely, that there are far more suicides already on the guy's resume that we simply haven't heard about), that will become less and less likely.

Two is not a sample size. The sample size here is the number of defendants prosecuted.

Two events can be very significant if the prior probability of the event is very low.

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