Statistics are both used and abused depending on what the institution behind the statistics wishes to convey to us. In some cases, statistics may be used to calm our fears about something like crime or job openings or, for those of the economically-minded, housing starts. You will recall, if you took a course in economics in college or even high school, that housing starts are seen as a precious key to understanding the greater economy. The more houses that are built or "started," the more jobs there are, the more products are produced to put into these houses and everyone in the economy appears to benefit. Those who look at housing starts are the bean counters of this culture and, of course, one of the greatest of bean counters is Alan Greenspan who started out counting the number of wall boards and nails that were produced and sold within certain periods of time. Yes, Alan was a nail counter.
But statistics, whether by intent or poor use of the math to create that final, calming or upsetting number, don't always tell the true story. Anyone who has been following crime statistics such as drunk driving or domestic violence for the past 50 years or so, will notice that there was a sharp upturn in women being arrested for drunk driving and in both women and men being charged with domestic violence. Did this have anything to do with the economy or was it more a cultural sea change?
Sociologists have opined that it is more cultural change than more crime being committed by drunken women and irate partners or spouses. Police officers, the sociologists suggest, have become more willing to stop female drunk drivers and give them a ticket or take them to the station house. In prior decades, these women, simply because they were women, were allowed to go on their way with a warning. Domestic violence situation which, in the past, would also not have been seen as a reason to arrest someone, is now taken much more seriously as a criminal action. How times have changed. It doesn't mean women have become drunken sots behind the wheel or that partners in intimate relationships have taken to beating each other up on a regular basis.
Now we come to the question on the minds of many people and that is whether or not changes in the financial situation of the country affects the abuse statistics relative to children. From the above two examples, you might assume that we are now more sensitive to protecting children and that statistics would show a relative change. In bad economic times, we would assume that children, unfortunately, would be abused more because of the frustration and anger in the home created by financial distress and a sense of hopelessness. But that's not the case, according to an article which recently appeared in the New York Times and which pointed out the flaws in these statistics.
The economist, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, has an entirely different read on why these statistics have gone down on child abuse as the economy has tanked. It is Dr. Stephens-Davidowitz's opinion that the reason the statistics appear to have gone down is entirely due to the effects of the sequester measures on the number of protectors for children. As stated in his article, he sees it as "far fewer of these cases were reported to authorities, with much of the drop due to cuts in budgets for teachers, nurses, doctors and child protective service workers." So, as he pointed out, "the biggest drops were in the states hardest hit by the recession."
While Nevada had an unemployment rate of over 13%, at the same time there was an almost 18% drop in reports of child maltreatment. So unemployment, according to those statistics, would using rather simplistic reasoning, be good for children because maltreatment drops as a result. No one would ever believe that, but if you are only given the child maltreatment statistics by themselves, and you don't look at other factors, you are led by the nose to a false conclusion; a poor economy does not equal poor treatment of children. I can't see that anyone would think that way. This is a rather blatant example of statistics in a vacuum. They are never to be used alone.
The article also contains other interesting facts such as the change in how some police departments respond to certain kinds of calls or wait for the person to hang up and that physicians have admitted in some surveys that they don't report 27% of suspicious incidents regarding child maltreatment. The treatment of children hasn't changed. Only the ability of reporting has changed and it has led, obviously, to erroneous conclusions on the part of anyone who would read these statistics and believe them.
Although the exact source for some government surveys wasn't provided in the article, the author did admit that a simple Google search can turn up a gold mine of this unsavory activity. He also indicates that the statistics point out that "52% of violent crimes, 60% of property crimes and 65% of rapes and sexual assaults were never reported to the police." Reading this you must be left wondering just how much violence is out there and is anyone really ever going to be able to track it accurately. Probably not because there are too many factors over which we have little or no control or which are working against our uncovering this information.
Once again, I have to make reference to that little gem of a book that was written several decades ago,
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America by Michael Wheeler, which you can find on Amazon, if you are so inclined.
Kids maltreatment and recession or severe economic downturns do not go in a direct relationship.
Fired Up: A shrink's musings