Law & order/ Hard science in the courtroom

When statistics are abused in politics or the media, the rebuke that follows can inflict a dose of embarrassment on the abuser. But a far more disturbing and personally destructive backdrop for the misuse of statistics is in the courtroom. In this setting, the power of statistics can provide the vital link in evidence needed for justice, or the distortion that sets a prosecution down the path to injustice.

As far back as the trial of Alfred Dreyfus in 19th century France, the story of statistics and the law has been a long, fraught but ultimately necessary association. This is why the Statistics and the Law Working Group of the RSS has now become a permanent Section of the Society. The working group was brought together in 2005 after a spate of legal cases with flawed statistical evidence, but one case in particular prompted the statistical community to sit up and take note.

Statistics and the law: a recent history of an uneasy relationship