Abuse by foster parents rare

Abuse by foster parents rare

Child abuse is an ongoing problem in the United States, while cases of abuse by foster parents are relatively rare, government data show.

Note: Yeah, we know.  Stooges for the agencies who are supposed to be objective.  Right?

You need to pay very careful attention to the wording of this article.  It contains word games, or plays on words and numbers plugging the myth of severity in effort to make it look worse from one side and better on the other.

Example:

• The article states that approximately 9 out of every 1000 children nationwide were victims of child abuse.
• The article states that less than one percent of children in foster care are abused in Texas.  
• The article does not mention that 9 out of 1000 is technically less than 1% and most people are not smart enough to catch such plays on numbers.
• The article does not state how many foster children out of 1000 are abused in Texas or in the United States.  Is it 8 out of 1000?  1 out of 1000?  

The article does not give us all the information we need to accurately interpret all of these numbers.  So we would have to do research in order to verify what is being said here, to which I will consult with one of my online friends from Texas who I'm sure would take interest in this.

The article also states the following:

Data show 84 reported cases of child abuse by foster parents in Texas in 2011, compared with more than 72,000 cases of child abuse by the victim’s parents. Parents abused or neglected their own children in about 80 percent of reported cases nationwide.

Now without stating how many kids are in foster care and comparing it to the number of kids in Texas one is not able to do the math and verify that children in foster care are safer than children in their homes in Texas.  We should simply take them for their word.

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Thanks to my buddy Jim Black for his assistance with this article.

I am re-posting his comment here, along with the other links he sent me, so that nobody misses it.

Okay, first abuse by foster parents is a law enforcement issue in Texas and does not fall under CPS or CASA. They are the wrong source for these numbers. 

The 2012 census showed Texas had 7,062,044 children under 18. Now that article used 2011 figures for child abuse so the child population would have been slightly lower. What it did not tell you was of the 72,000 confirmed cases, approximately 18,000 went into foster care. 

Now I find only 84 abuses out of 18,000 rather hard to imagine. Unless it was cases and not children. Using the 9 of 1000 figure would yield 162 children. But even that seems low because it is the general consensuses that foster children are 4-6 times more likely to be abused than if they stayed in the home. That would change that 9 to 36-54 per 1000 children, upping the number to between 648-972 children. 

Now I feel these numbers more accurately estimates the true numbers of abuse by parents. But to get the real numbers check with law enforcement not CPS or CASA.

Jim also sent me the following links which will help you get to the bottom of this.

http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/About_DFPS/Data_Books_and_Annual_Reports/

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/83R/billtext/html/SB00423F.htm

http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/handbooks/CPS/Files/CPS_px_2000.asp#CPS_apx2000

http://aeovrt.blogspot.com/2013/05/overall-disposition-reason-to-believe.html
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