Idiots, Lies, Statistics & Terrorism

Did child abuse in the US really quadruple?

	David Besharov, who helped design NIS, charged that the quadrupling of child abuse reports in the US was due solely to "methodological changes" in NIS-3 (The Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect  from the US Department of Health and Human Services).
	Andrea J. Sedlak, Ph.D. and Diane D. Broadhurst, authors of the study, called his charge "seriously misleading", "misinformation", and maintained that a quadrupling in seven years of "serious injury" and "endangerment" while "moderate injury" remained flat was not due to "methodological changes".
	They claim that a 1995 Gallup poll of parents shows that the REAL rate of child abuse is 16 times higher than the 3.1 million reports in 1995.
	Such wild charges of "child abuse" led to the creation of a $285 billion child abuse industry.
	According to her "study", 100% of American parents are child abusers every one and a half years.
	They failed to broadcast that children in Father-only households are one fourth as likely to be murdered than children in Both Parents families.

This is not merely a flawed report--it makes such wild claims that even the most rabid critic of SMHs would question that two forms of child abuse could quadruple while one form could remain flat.  It is a statistical impossibility for this to happen without a methodological change of some kind, because no social statistic, not even child abuse, has ever made such quantum a leap.

It is agreed that child abuse is more prevalent in SMHs.  It is agreed that the percent of children living in SMHs increased dramatically during that time, from 25% in 1987 to 32% in 1993.  It is agreed that this is a serious problem.  But this level of false allegations of "child abuse" is even more dangerous than SMHs. 

Table 5-4 shows that children in Mother-only households, compared to children in Both Parents families, are 70% more likely to be seriously abused, 84% more likely to be moderately abused, and 220% more likely to be endangered.  Table 3-4 shows that serious abuse increased four fold from 143,300 to 569,900, moderate abuse increased 13% from 873,100 to 986,100, and endangerment increased four fold from 254,000 to 1,032,000.  The number of children in SMHs increased 16 million to 21 million, a 31% increase.

According to Table 5-4, 5 million more children in Mother-only households would be expected to increase serious abuse by 4.1 per 1,000 children (20,500 cases), moderate abuse by 8.1 per 1,000 children (40,500 cases), and endangerment by 11.1 per 1,000 children (55,500 cases):

The biggest problem with these astounding figures, though, is the notion that this rate of child abuse is understating the problem by 16 fold.  With 3.1 million official reports of child abuse, this is tantamount to a claim that 49.6 million of the nation's children are "abused" each year.  This means that under the existing laws of the land, 100% of all American parents are guilty of "child abuse" every 1 year and five months.

What kind of an idiot would sign her name to a nationally published report which claims that American parents are guilty of a crime which is so serious in the blind dumb feminist mind that there are parents in PRISON right now for being found "guilty of child abuse"?

This report is literally an act of terrorism.

I DEMAND that the terrorists who claimed that I am a "child abuser" every 1 year and 5 months be LOCKED UP FOR GOOD.  They are without any redeeming social value.  Their role in it should be brought to an immediate and "abusive" end.

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