Probability

Question

A newspaper reported on an independent study of police officers and violence at the local presinct. In a sample of 14,000 police officers, 560 were physically assaulted on the job. Use this information to estimate the probability that a randomly selected postal worker will be assaulted on the job during the year.

 

The probability that a randomly selected police officer will be physically assaulted on the job during the year is ? (answer in simplified form)

Answer 1

The probability that a police officer is physically assaulted on the job can be estimated as 560/14,000 = 0.04 or 4%. But what does this have to do with postal workers and the probability of one of them being assaulted on the job? Comparing pears to apples here. Also, over what period of time was the survey completed? (1 year, 6 months, 3 months, something else?) If the survey was done over a 6 month period, the probability of a police officer being assaulted on the job over a period of 1 year is higher than what estimated. Probably, you need to assume that the period of the survey is the same as the one required in the question (i.e., one year).......