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Notes -
If each and every one of the twelve "normal" dudes is actually normal, middle of the bell curve in terms of criminality, then yeah it's going to be much safer, although it's still a non-negligible risk factor. Ordinary people can get violent if they're acting to protect their children from what they perceive as a threat (and rightly so in many cases). If instead they're chosen randomly from the distribution, then out of a dozen men you're going to get several on the low end of the bell curve. Given that 9% of men end up going to prison, you're likely to get one being an actual criminal who just hasn't been caught yet. Who might then act violent towards the others and get them pulled into trying to fight back in an attempt to protect themselves, the woman, and/or the child. Modify this again by noting that the subset of men who are likely to fall for a stunt like this are going to be below average in intelligence and general quality, so you're very likely to be pulling from the lower end of the bell curve repeatedly, even if not quite at the depths that prison would be.
It's still qualitatively the same risk scenario, the prison part does make it worse but it's merely an amplifier to the pre-existing risk.
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