Currently on the front page of her site:
�What if??� doesn�t take into account probability, or even reality. It just builds big, bright, horrible possibilities and projects them, Power Point-like, into the conversation
Sorry, I agree with this idea. People consistently overestimate the likelihood of predation and underestimate the danger involved in driving their kids around. Driving is dangerous. Talking on a cell phone while driving is
really dangerous, yet people yak away when they drive. Because they're so distracted, they aren't aware of how they're weaving and changing their speed.
In fact, if you review DOJ and other statistics, it becomes apparent that a fair number (about 1/3 IIRC) of all reported child rapes occur when a child is walking through neighborhoods, next to fields, etc. not immediately adjacent to the home. Those are conveniently discarded by free-range advocates. Nor do they discuss the scope of unreported child rapes, etc.
I couldn't find these statistics; I'd be grateful if you could point me to them.
But one third is only a disconnected number. You need to know, "One third of
how many?" If you don't have this number, you're in danger of misinterpreting statistics.
I found
this publication from the US Government that says that 89,500 cases of childhood sexual abuses were substantiated by social services agencies in 2000. This includes abuse in the home, which happens ~93% of the time according to that link I included in my last message.
Double that number (unreported cases) and round it to 180,000. For stranger sex abuse, reduce to 7% of the total: (180,000*0.07)= 12,600 cases of stranger sex abuse. "Sexual abuse" probably includes flashing and inappropriate touching, but I'll go with half of the cases being rape (seems generous to me). That's 6,300 stranger rapes.
There were 72.4 million children aged 17 and under in the US in 2000. So:
6300/72400000 = 0.000087 or
a risk of 8.7 per 100,000. This just isn't high enough for me to stop my kids from going to the park.
I know predation happens. But car accidents happen way,
way,
way more frequently. Yet I don't hear constant newcasts about the dangers of driving with kids in the car. Using the statistics I quoted in the first post, I determined that the risk of a child being injured in the family car is ~2.5 per thousand, or over
100 times higher than the risk that s/he'll be the victim of an unknown predator.
I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do. I'm only saying that it's important to look at the numbers when assessing risk.
But pardon me here; I can't resist: if people are so worried about a risk of 8.7 per 100K, why are they less worried about a risk that's over a hundred times higher?
Val
