Under-reporting, over-reporting

Figures released by CYF to the Herald on Sunday last week show in the year to June 30, a total of 4672 cases of child abuse - 46 per cent of the overall total - came from Maori households, compared with 27.8 per cent (2828 cases) from Pakeha families. That number for Maori is up from 45.1 per cent the previous year. The figure for Pakeha is down from 30.7 per cent. Only 2.8 per cent of abused children are Asian and 16.4 per cent are Pacific Island.

These figures struck me as too low. The reason why is CYF have left out the 'neglect' category - usually included under the general heading of 'abuse' - which adds about fifty percent more. (Unless of course the reporter left them out.)

So we have people like the Children's Commissioner over-stating the problem (because she is pushing her grand plan to monitor all children and the bigger the problem the more public buy-in she can get.) Barnardos overstating the problem (because they want more public and government funding). And you get other organisations (government) understating it probably for performance - both organisational and political - reasons.

What is noticeable however is the similarity between the year to December 2006 and the year to June 2007. 10,873 to 10,156. The number says more to me about CYF capacity than anything else. This is the number they can deal with so cases are prioritised accordingly.