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Appendix E
The regression underlies the remarks in the text.
It is a regression of sentenced days in jail on prior
offences and the value of the grow-op as estimated
by the police. The coefficient on PRIORS
tells us the effect of a change in the number of
prior offences on the length of sentence. On average,
an additional prior offence adds about 3.58
days to the sentence. The number of priors runs
from 0 to 25 so in the extreme, priors may add 90
days to a sentence. Looking at the coefficient on
the value of grow-ops (measured in units of
$100,000 as reported by police), an increase of
$100,000 implies an increase of about 16 days in
Dependent Variable: SENDAYS
Included observations: 111
PUBLIC POLICY SOURCES, NUMBER 74
Appendix BCUC IR1 74.1
sentenced jail time. Since the estimated value of
the marijuana grow operations runs between
$75,000 and $3.6 million, the effect on sentencing
can be substantial. At the extreme, the value can
add 540 days to the jail sentence.
Also of interest is the adjusted R 2 that indicates
that about 16 percent of the variance of days sentenced
can be explained by the two variables in
the regression. This is the basis for the remarks in
the text suggesting that there is much left to explain:
84 percent, to be precise.
Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.
C -8.85 15.8 -0.56 0.58
PRIORS 3.58 1.79 1.99 0.05
VALUE/100000 16.2 4.09 3.97 0.00
R-squared 0.17 Mean dependent var 52.1
Adjusted R-squared 0.16 S.D. dependent var 101.
S.E. of regression 93.1 F-statistic 11.2
Log likelihood -659. Prob(F-statistic) 0.00
The Fraser Institute 39 Marijuana Growth in British Columbia