[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: re unrelated males in household - some data
<x-html><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META content="MSHTML 5.00.2314.1000" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY style="FONT: 8pt MS Sans Serif; MARGIN-LEFT: 2px; MARGIN-TOP: 2px">
<DIV><FONT size=1>Hi, Ivan,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Your data is quite interesting. Perhaps the marital
status of the non-biological "mate" is the factor which results in the
unexpected finding regarding step-dads. Boyfriend or roommate is the
category in which I would expect to find the relationship, more than formal
married step-father, and if there is an interaction with poverty, that woud
reinforce the "non-marital" effect in the data.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Freya Schultz</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Santa Barbara Social Services</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=1>Freya Schultz<BR>Staff Analyst<BR>Santa Barbara County Social
Services<BR>234 Camino del Remedio<BR>Santa Barbara, CA 93110<BR>(805)
681-4626<BR><<A
href="mailto:freya@co.santa-barbara.ca.us";>freya@co.santa-barbara.ca.us</A>></FONT><BR><BR>>>>
ivan.brown@utoronto.ca 06/20/02 10:22AM >>> <BR>Dear all, <BR><BR>I
have been following with interest the discussion about deaths from
<BR>maltreatment -- especially so since I had only recently finished some
analysis <BR>of perpetrators of maltreatment in a subsample (n=666) of children
with <BR>developmental delay of the full sample (n=7,672) from the Canadian
Incidence <BR>Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (Trocme et al., 2001).
There were no <BR>reported deaths in this data, collected between October and
December 1998. <BR>However, other physical harm was reported (broken bones, head
trauma, scratches, <BR>bruises, etc), and one question that we explored was the
relationship between <BR>perpetrators of maltreatment and the occurrence of
physical harm. The question <BR>here was who was maltreating in such a way that
it resulted in physical harm. <BR>The discussions by this group really made me
wonder about the role of males in <BR>the home who are not related by blood.
<BR><BR>So, I would like to share a few findings from our analysis. <BR><BR>For
the primary reason for reporting maltreatment (from sub-types of physical
<BR>abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect), 135 of the 666 children
(20.27%) <BR>were recorded as having experienced physical harm. The perpetrators
of this <BR>physical harm were 84 biological mothers (62.2% of all cases with
physical <BR>harm), 60 biological fathers (44.4% of all cases), 10
step-mothers/female <BR>partners (7.4% of all cases), 3 step-fathers/male
partners (2.2% of all cases), <BR>and 8 other relatives (5.9% of all cases).
There were a few other categories <BR>with very low numbers. (The % add to more
than 100% because more than one <BR>person could be recorded as having
perpetrated maltreatment of one child, and <BR>this is a weakness in the
analysis because, where 2 people were perpetrators and <BR>physical harm was
caused, we have no way of knowing which one caused the harm.) <BR>However, even
with this weakness, this analysis still suggests, for this sample, <BR>that
physical harm most frequnently occurs as a result of action by biological
<BR>parents, or perhaps, to a lesser degree step-mothers. <BR><BR>But this does
not tell the whole story, because the number of step-parents is <BR>much lower
than biological parents. So, the occurrence of harm also needs to <BR>be looked
at as a percentage of the parent category (i.e., what percentage of <BR>all
biological mothers, biological fathers, step-mothers, step-fathers
<BR>perpetrated maltreatment that resulted in physical harm?). This question is
<BR>more relevant to risk of maltreatment and relationship to the child. So, I
did <BR>this too. The 84 biological mothers who were perpetrators and where
physical <BR>harm was recorded represented 15.12% of all biological mothers in
maltreating <BR>homes (n=556), the 60 biological fathers who were perpetrators
and where harm <BR>was recorded represented 22.81% of all biological fathers in
maltreating homes <BR>(n=263), the 10 step-mothers who were perpetrators and
where harm was recorded <BR>represented 55.56% of all step-mothers in
maltreating homes (n=18), and the 3 <BR>step-fathers who were perpetrators and
where harm was recorded represented 3.09% <BR>of all step-fathers in maltreating
homes (n=97). The same weakness as described <BR>in the above paragraph is again
relevant, but this alanysis, again, by no means <BR>implicates step-fathers in
physical harm. <BR><BR>I also checked the age thing, since there was concern
that young non-related <BR>males might pose greater risk. The frequencies did
not suggest a trend here. <BR><BR>Well, I have obviously said nothing about
reporting, substantiation, and other <BR>factors that are very relevant to
accurate maltreatment data. However, this <BR>analysis did make me wonder if we
generally might be jumping to conclusions <BR>about step-fathers/male partners
and the risk they pose for physical harm, if <BR>there was some major flaw in
our data collection procedure, or, if there is <BR>increased risk of harm at the
hands of non-related males, the risk might be more <BR>related to the closeness
of the unrelated male (in our data all were listed as <BR>caregivers, but not
primary caregivers). If, for example, there was a live-in <BR>male who was not
even considered a caregiver, and/or if that relationship were <BR>new or
temporary or on-and-off, the relationship between the male and the child
<BR>would presumably differ qualitatively and might influence risk negatively or
<BR>positively. There may be other factors as well. Other domestic violence was
<BR>suggested as one possibility. <BR><BR>Anyway, food for thought...
<BR><BR><BR>-- <BR>Ivan Brown, PhD <BR>Manger, Centre of Excellence for Child
Welfare <BR>Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto <BR>246 Bloor Street
West <BR>Toronto, Canada M5S 1A1 <BR><BR>Telephone: 416-946-8845
<BR><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>
</x-html>From ???@??? Fri Jun 21 11:06:49 2002
Status: U
Return-Path: <owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Received: from elist02.mail.cornell.edu (elist02.mail.cornell.edu [132.236.56.15])
by postoffice.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA04023;
Fri, 21 Jun 2002 11:05:26 -0400 (EDT)
Received: (from daemon@localhost)
by elist02.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id LAA09057;
Fri, 21 Jun 2002 11:05:25 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from elist02.mail.cornell.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by elist02.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id LAA07427;
Fri, 21 Jun 2002 11:00:40 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu (mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu [132.236.56.26])
by elist02.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA04648
for <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@elist02.mail.cornell.edu>; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 10:53:32 -0400 (EDT)
Received: (from daemon@localhost)
by mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA13788
for CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@elist02.mail.cornell.edu; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 10:53:33 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from blueyonder.co.uk (pcow035o.blueyonder.co.uk [195.188.53.121])
by mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA13776
for <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>; Fri, 21 Jun 2002 10:53:33 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from pcow035o.blueyonder.co.uk ([127.0.0.1]) by blueyonder.co.uk with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.757.75);
Fri, 21 Jun 2002 15:53:32 +0100
Received: from mikeproc (unverified [62.31.16.29]) by pcow035o.blueyonder.co.uk
(Content Technologies SMTPRS 4.2.9) with SMTP id <T5b9fc99534ac1785ed2b8@pcow035o.blueyonder.co.uk> for <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>;
Fri, 21 Jun 2002 15:53:32 +0100
Message-ID: <001c01c21933$7d26b370$1d101f3e@mikeproc>
X-PH: V4.1@mailhub2
X-PH: V4.1@elist02 (Cornell Modified)
From: " Mike Procter" <mikeprocter@blueyonder.co.uk>
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
References: <F104Y4RzPTKSnndz4cw0000e79e@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: re unrelated males in household
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 15:54:04 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
Message-Tag: 4718
Reply-To: CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
Sender: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.2.09.cu.02/011115/14:19 -- ListProc(tm) by CREN
I'm a new member, and the guidelines seem to suggest the following is not
apropriate to the list, since it is about issues not information. I hope
people will put me right on this.
It's important to distinguish between correlation and cause. Even if the
presence of an unrelated male were reliably correlated with child harm
or death, it would be improper to infer causation, and without established
causation it would be inappropriate to take remedial measures. To use a
quite different example, there is a strong association between alcohol use
and conviction for a crime of violence. The mechanism is fairly well
understood (suppression of inhibitions against this kind of behaviour), so
that it seem appropriate to say that alcohol use causes vioence. The
therapeutic response to violence credibly includes treatment of alcohol
abuse.
There is also a substantial association between smoking tobacco and
criminality. (As a simple corroboration of this claim, consider how many
prison inmates smoke, compared with the general population.) There is no
established physiological mechanism to account for this association, so it
would not be safe to talk in causal terms and, in particular, it has not
been seriously suggested that banning the use of tobacco would have any
impact on crime.
In this second case a plausible causal mechanism might be that both smoking
and crime are a response to stress. That is, social and psychological
stress tend to cause a person to smoke and also tend to cause them to comit
crimes.Eliminating smoking would not reduce crime (indeed, though this is
irrelevant to the main argument, it might increase frustration and thus
increase crime).
The application of this point to the present thread presumably needs no
detailed spelling out: the original report showed a correlation between
presence of unrelated males and child death, but causation has not been
established. Even if all the deaths were caused by the man, it does not
follow that, say, legislating to prohibit sich domestic arrangements would
have the desired result. The onus of evidence lies on the proponent of the
alternative hypothesis (as opposed to the null hypothesis that says that
nothing is happening), but any moderately lurid imagination could come up
with an alternative (if totally unsupported unless and until my request for
a million Euro research grant is met) story. For instance, it's possible
that single mothers unconsciously wish to regain their former freedom, and
if they were unable to recruit a domestic hitman they would be reduced to
killing their own child.