Is America’s conviction rate really 99.5%?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2012
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Conrad Black has claimed that 99.5% of prosecution cases in America end up in convictions. Is it really this high? We try to estimate how this compares to the number of convictions in other parts of the world.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
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| 0:37.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:40.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBCWorld Service.com |
| 0:45.7 | slash Podcasts. |
| 0:50.0 | Hello and welcome to more or less the statistical sloths on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:55.0 | I'm Ruth Alexander this week. |
| 0:57.2 | No I'm not a criminal. Do you think a British court would have behaved like this? |
| 1:01.0 | Do you think a British court would... Wait a second. |
| 1:04.0 | That's Conrad Black, the former owner of newspapers in the UK, the US, Canada and Israel, |
| 1:09.5 | and he's Lord Black of Cross Harbor in the House of Lords in the UK. In May he was released from an American |
| 1:15.8 | jail after serving a 35-month sentence for fraud and the obstruction of justice, but he says he was |
| 1:21.8 | only convicted because of corruption in the US justice system. |
| 1:25.0 | system. |
| 1:26.0 | Conrad Black has been trying to rebuild his reputation and has been appearing widely in the |
| 1:29.8 | media. |
| 1:30.8 | We enjoyed watching him on the BBC's News Night program. |
| 1:34.0 | Let me tell you something. I am proud of having gone through the terribly difficult process of being falsely charged, |
... |
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