Thanks... I will, of course, note the difference between arrests, charges and prosecutions. But, one of my concerns is the qualitative AND quantitative nature and extent of government intervention in the democratic process.
During apartheid South Africa, for instance, protests were blocked by various means for any period, group, or place... Some of us were arbitrarily arrested and detained without being charged or prosecuted. It altered much of our social life how we worked as journalists (self); even how we had/held music concerts - seriously!!! As journalists we watched what AND how we wrote because of legal restrictions AND fear! Socially, we would even change the names of music concerts or theatrical productions to avoid being teargassed, arrested, beaten, detained without trial and banned - some of which you may, of course, describe as value judgments.
I guess what I am saying is that focusing only on quantifying the facts on prosecutions, and assuming a Humean separation of facts and values (sorry, I am not positivist) may ignore the general snuffling out of democracy. Thus, I am not particularly fixated with quantifying the facts, but interested in issuses like fear, silence, denial - let me call it 'repression phenomena'... I will/have to of course, nonethless, be thorough with regard to the facts.
Cheers
Ismail
----- Original Message ---- From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Wednesday, 20 December, 2006 12:51:05 PM Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Sources of Information/Data
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Check the DoJ databases e.g.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dtdata.htm#crime
If you do not find what you want, try to contact them directly, they are very helpful and should be able to direct you to the right data set, if it exists.
However, the problem that you are facing is that it is unlikely that any data source will have a category “folk were arrested, questioned, beaten etc or protesting, or speaking out against.” This is a value judgment, and you need to ferret it out from the information about the disposition of the case e.g. whether it was prosecuted.
Wojtek
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