From time to time I
stumble across an article that so thoroughly abuses statistics, I feel
compelled to write something down. I spotted an excellent case in point in the
Metro on 28th February.
Here’s a summary:
The title proclaims: “Serial rapists ‘stay free because of failures by police and prosecutors’.” The title sets the scene. After reading this title I
am expecting an expose on the failures of law in the UK and horror stories of
serial rapists stalking the streets. Pretty gripping stuff!
The subtitle embellishes
this with “Serial rapists may be
escaping justice because of a raft of failures by police and prosecutors, a
damning report claims.” Currently
we are still very much on the theme of expose and serial rapist terror.
We enter the body of the
text and statistics start being bandied about:
“Their attacks go
unrecorded because as many as three in ten reported rapes are written off as if
no crime ever took place, the investigation reveals.” This sentence
states that as many as 3 in 10 rapes are assigned as ‘no crime’ committed. The
use of the emotive words ‘as many as’ and ‘as if no crime ever took place’
gives the impression that this is a scandal. I have no idea if this is a
scandal or not. I have nothing to compare this statistic to. The language
informs me that a scandal has taken place rather than the meaningless
statistic.
“Figures
showed almost 12 per cent of rape cases in 2010 ended with police ruling no
crime had been committed compared with just three per cent of GBH cases.” A few sentences later we are presented the national statistic
of less than 12% of rape cases assigned as ‘no crime’ committed. This is much
lower than the 30% rate that was quoted above. Why the drop? This is cleared up
in the following sentence:
“In
Kent, the figure was 30 per cent although it was just 2.4 per cent in
Gloucestershire.” It appears that rather than using the larger,
more accurate data set at the start of the article the reporter cherry picked the
biggest number to sensationalize. This latest comparison begs the question ‘Why
is there such a difference in
‘no crime’ judgements between Gloucestershire and
Kent?’ The question remains unanswered.
“More than one in ten of these decisions were wrong, according to an analysis of at least 100 such ‘no crimes’, the report says.” Wait one second! This statistic shows 1 in 10 of the rape cases assigned as ‘No crime’ is incorrect. So of the 12% of rape cases assigned as ‘No crime’ nationally, 1.2% are incorrectly assigned. We have dropped from 30% in the first sentence of the article to 1.2%. This is disguised through confusing words. It definitely did not jump out at me. I read the text several times to decipher the conflicting stories being told by the statistics and the text.
“Interpol record checks on rapes abroad ‘were not regularly conducted’, even though they can identify a pattern of offending.” This sentence is the justification for the serial rapists. The incidence of serial rape by foreigners in the UK would have been interesting line of enquiry. As it stands the article gives no clue as to the size of this problem. The title persuades us towards the seriousness of the issue. The data gives us too little information to refute the titles proclamation.
Journalism as weak as this is undermines the story that it tells. Without clear facts about a story how can a serious dialogue develop? A quick scan of Wikipedia and related articles on the internet gives a sense that there are serious issues with rape convictions in the UK. A home office study in 2005 states some facts we know about rape:
Since the age of 16, 7 per cent of women had suffered a
serious sexual assault at least once in their lifetime (5% had been raped).
The paper reports ‘an
estimated annual incidence rate of 47,000 adult female victims of rape.’
“Home Office figures show an on-going decline in the
conviction rate for reported rape cases, putting it at an all-time low of 5.6
per cent in 2002.”
A number of studies have found high rates of ‘no criming’
These are serious issues.
Unfortunately Metro and Nick Herbert haven’t provided the facts, clarity or dialogue
to support the cause.
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