The notion that journalists are math phobic and prone to error when working with numbers is an age-old cliché, embodied in the quip that, for many in the media, the plural of anecdote is data.

The United States reached a demographic milestone in July 2011, when for the first time the majority of new members of society — children under age 1 — were non-white. This emerging “majority-minority” population constituted 50.4% of babies born in American society during that period; this figure stood at 49% just a year prior. In total, 36.6% of the U.S. population were minorities in 2011 — some 114 million people — up from 36.1% in 2010.

Crime prevention efforts aren’t limited to policing and incarceration. Education has long been advocated as a way to help former inmates succeed in the world outside prison after their release and thus reduce reincarceration.