5 ms·

Sort of. There are two claims someone might make. "X is common, and it poses a meaningful risk", or "X exists, and it poses a non-zero risk". Anecdotes do not

by mcherm 10y ago

Sort of. There are two claims someone might make. "X is common, and it poses a meaningful risk", or "X exists, and it poses a non-zero risk". Anecdotes do not help much with the first claim, but they do help with the second. So perhaps we can agree that child abductions CAN happen, and that CPS overreach DOES occur. Then we can review the real risks of both. I've seen data on the real risk of child abductions. I have never seen data on the real risks of CPS overreach. (And it would be difficult to define "overreach".) Does anyone know of any such data? (Because also, in the complete absence of actual data, anecdotes are better than nothing.)

harryh 10y ago
And in the absence of meaningful data BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY! said the overprotective parent that wouldn't let their 12 year old kid bike 5 blocks to school. Seriously, once you see the parallels between how parents afraid of criminals and parents afraid of CPS talk about the risks you can't un-see them.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  Number of kids abducted by strangers per year 115. Number of kids investigated by the CPS 3.2 million. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf
  - harryh 10y ago
    Your second data point is not a relevant comparison. The number you need is the number of people incorrectly taken from their parents by CPS.
    - laughinghan 10y ago
      Of course it's relevant. I am certain that I am far from alone in expecting CPS to incorrectly take children more than 115/3.2 million = 0.0036% of the time, which means that even without knowing the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, I was convinced by those numbers that a random kid has a higher chance of being mistakenly taken by CPS than abducted by a stranger. Are you telling me that even though you, like me, don't know the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, you expect it to be less that 0.0036%?
      - harryh 10y ago
        Yes, I do think it's less than 0.0036%. First we see from the data that CPS declared 2.5 million of those 3.2 as "non-victims" so we can eliminate type 1 errors from almost 80% of the population right there. Of the remaining 700k it's not inconceivable at all that in a big percentage of cases there were actually significant parental problems. Frankly I bet that type 2 errors are much more common that type 1 for this population.
        fweespeech 10y ago
        http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result. Their error rate on non-victims is a helluva alot higher than that. I don't have faith their error rate for victims is much better given we don't have data for that.

by mcherm 10y ago

harryh 10y ago

And in the absence of meaningful data BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY! said the overprotective parent that wouldn't let their 12 year old kid bike 5 blocks to school. Seriously, once you see the parallels between how parents afraid of criminals and parents afraid of CPS talk about the risks you can't un-see them.

JamesBarney 10y ago
Number of kids abducted by strangers per year 115. Number of kids investigated by the CPS 3.2 million. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196467.pdf
- harryh 10y ago
  Your second data point is not a relevant comparison. The number you need is the number of people incorrectly taken from their parents by CPS.
  - laughinghan 10y ago
    Of course it's relevant. I am certain that I am far from alone in expecting CPS to incorrectly take children more than 115/3.2 million = 0.0036% of the time, which means that even without knowing the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, I was convinced by those numbers that a random kid has a higher chance of being mistakenly taken by CPS than abducted by a stranger. Are you telling me that even though you, like me, don't know the exact percentage of the time that CPS is mistaken, you expect it to be less that 0.0036%?
    - harryh 10y ago
      Yes, I do think it's less than 0.0036%. First we see from the data that CPS declared 2.5 million of those 3.2 as "non-victims" so we can eliminate type 1 errors from almost 80% of the population right there. Of the remaining 700k it's not inconceivable at all that in a big percentage of cases there were actually significant parental problems. Frankly I bet that type 2 errors are much more common that type 1 for this population.
      - fweespeech 10y ago
        http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-year-child-protective-services-conducted-32-million-investigations/374809/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea... > 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result. Their error rate on non-victims is a helluva alot higher than that. I don't have faith their error rate for victims is much better given we don't have data for that.