Wednesday 16 February 2011

Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, And Fakecharity Campaigns…

One in four people in the UK, aged between 18 and 24, claims to have experienced severe violence, sexual abuse or neglect as a child, says the children's charity the NSPCC.
Which startling fact needs looking into. I mean, just what’s their definition?
The study defined "severe maltreatment" across a wide range of measures. It included young people who had been subject to rape, attempted rape, forced sexual contact, sexual abuse, physical harm such as a black eye and being hit with a weapon.
Yup, reasonable people would conclude that this is indeed ‘severe maltreatment’, as the BBC article carrying water for the charity survey screams.

But most reasonable people wouldn’t agree that this falls into that definition:
But it also included "serious emotional neglect or lack of physical care or supervision", which it defined as including "parents never or hardly ever asking their child who they were going out with or where or what they were doing".
No indeed. Not by a long chalk…
NSPCC chief executive Andrew Flanagan said it meant there were likely to be "severely maltreated children in every secondary school".
Only going by the second category. Not the first. So why not ‘fess up on the breakdown of your figures?

Is it because there’s money in it?
Children's Minister Tim Loughton says the NSPCC will receive a grant of £11.2m for ChildLine and the NSPCC Helpline until 2015.
Like I figured…
The study reveals an overall decline in children reporting that they have experienced violence and abuse.
And when things are declining, they somehow need more taxpayer money, not less?

So much for that ‘change’ of government we thought we had, eh?

As Raedwald points out:
“One thing we can be sure of is that we're going to have to protect our children from these poor deluded creatures whilst this latest bout of madness lasts.”

9 comments:

PT said...

If it receives Government money extorted from taxpayers, is the NSPCC really a charity? I thought charity was supposed to rely on voluntary contributions. And what does the NSPCC actually do? Surely the Social Services and Police deal with the mistreatment of children; at least, they always seem to share the blame when a high profile child cruelty case hits the headlines, never a mention of where the NSPCC figures in it. So, apart from the emotional blackmail in their adverts suggesting that I must give them £2 a month to stop child cruelty, I repeat, what does the NSPCC do?

Mark Wadsworth said...

The whole thing is most puzzling.

I accept that there are some children treated so badly that the state has to step in, be that social workers, taking them into care, prosecuting parents etc.

And all in all, the UK has quite a good record on violence against children, it's about 50 kids a year killed by parents out of 15 million kids or something (often by MONAs, unsurprisingly enough).

Cases like Baby P make you think that they could do a lot better, but there are so many parents who are such scum that you wonder what they are supposed to do.

So, given this reasonably good record, why does the government waste millions on fakecharity advertising and crap, when it could spend the money on a few more social workers or foster parents or something, both of which demonstrably 'work'?

Longrider said...

"One in four people in the UK, aged between 18 and 24, claims to have experienced severe violence, sexual abuse or neglect as a child, says the children's charity the NSPCC."

Bollocks. Made up statistics from a fake charity. Should we expect anything less?

Old BE said...

"parents never or hardly ever asking their child who they were going out with or where or what they were doing"

My mum was telling me just the other day that she tried incredibly hard not to interfere and smother and patronise. I turned out fairly independent and self-sufficient. Apparently that is child abuse!

Anonymous said...

From what I've seen, various agencies can't recognize and do much about real abuse and violence, and yet still prosecute what isn't there. Cops dealing with 'street grooming' have found that it is a problem they were not good at spotting until guided. I suspect there may be a model in this area we could apply in abuse generally. That and stopping the performance management lies of ACPO and Local Authority worthies.

Anonymous said...

Even worse, being a leftie organisation (I know, they all are). the bastards organise for children to be taken off parents who are doing their damnedest to stop their kids getting into real danger.I remember one case, in the mail, where they had PLACED a fifteen year old girl with her black boyfriend, who had got her onto drugs, whilst her poor parents were preevented from even approaching her.
I don't dictate to my wife, but I made sure that she never sent them another penny.

banned said...

My parents stopped asking who I was going out with after I told them to mind their own business (teenage 'Kevin' phase). So does that mean that I was abused and, if so, how do I claim my money?

JuliaM said...

"If it receives Government money extorted from taxpayers, is the NSPCC really a charity?"

There's very, very few that do qualify these days.

"So, given this reasonably good record, why does the government waste millions on fakecharity advertising and crap..."

I can only assume it's in hope of a cushy sinecure once they leave (or are kicked out of) office...

"Made up statistics from a fake charity. Should we expect anything less?"

Indeed. And our media just tamely print it, with no questions asked.

" I turned out fairly independent and self-sufficient. Apparently that is child abuse!"

It's such an unbelievable inversion of normal behaviour, it beggars belief that people don't laugh out loud on seeing it presented as 'evidence', isn't it?

JuliaM said...

"That and stopping the performance management lies of ACPO and Local Authority worthies."

Most definitely!

"I remember one case, in the mail, where they had PLACED a fifteen year old girl with her black boyfriend, who had got her onto drugs, whilst her poor parents were preevented from even approaching her."

/facepalm

"So does that mean that I was abused and, if so, how do I claim my money?"

:D