> If we used statistics to guide criminal justice policy we’d be in big trouble

Uh... we do use statistics to guide criminal justice policy? Not sure I understand what you're saying. How do you think they decide where to police and what to prosecute? How they decide on legislative penalties? It's true that this process isn't necessarily 100% data based, and in a bunch of ways ends up very unfair, but it's absolutely driven by a mostly-sincere attempt to get the most social good out of our limited enforcement and regulatory budgets.

Dog whistles aside, the entire justice system is driven by stats.

The statistics are the best part of criminal justice policy. DNA tests, Blood typing, fingerprint matching all run on statistical analysis. Much better than the memory of a witness.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with statistics, you just need to maintain an appropriate threshold for where you draw the statistical line.