Questioning statistics

Let's ask what we don't know about sexual assault rates.

by Jody Dallaire, Dieppe Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunity between Women and Men

Maclean's magazine has an annual survey called "Canada's most dangerous cities." Once you start something like that, the news that Canada is basically a safe place really won't play. If crime rates actually decline — as they have been — well, then I guess that you just make the best of it by reporting the worst cases.

What I want to raise today — apart from the irrelevance of that once-great magazine — is Maclean's recent report that, according to official statistics, Saint John is the city with the highest rate of reported sexual assaults in Canada. Again.

Fredericton was not far behind, with the third highest rate of sexual assaults reported in Canada. Caledon, Ontario had the lowest rate of reported sexual assaults. (Sexual assault numbers include male, female, child and adult victims).

When the number of sexual assaults reported to police increases, we don't know whether to be happy at the possibility that more people are reporting these crimes instead of hiding them or to be concerned that this crime may be happening even more often than before.

We don't know how to react because we don't really know what is happening; and we don't know what is happening because we don't have the information that we need.

Having the highest reported rate of sexual assaults could be good news for Saint John, if there was evidence that shows that Saint John has proven and effective support programs for sexual assault victims. Perhaps this is the reason for the increase in reported cases.

But it could just as easily be that Saint John's rate is bad news: that Saint John simply has a lot of sexual assaults.

All we can say is this: we don't really know. And we should say it loudly because, otherwise, those that might be able to clarify or rectify the situation will just go away and nothing will be known or changed.

To play it the way Maclean's did, saying that Saint John is the Canadian city where people are most at risk of being sexually assaulted, is far from the journalistically neutral way of giving information.

If you're not going to wait for the facts before writing the headline, then you could just as easily have written that Saint John is where sexual assault victims feel the safest to report sexual assaults — and Caledon, Ontario, the most difficult place to report the crime.

Either way of reporting the data would be wrong. We. Don't. Really. Know!

After the Maclean's list came out, reporters went out looking for reasons Saint John might be the "most dangerous city" for sexual assault. They talked to people who work with victims. They said: don't worry, it's because we're doing a good job of supporting victims to report it.

Last year, when the same Maclean's list had Saint John on top, reporters asked Saint John police to comment. The police spokesperson also saw it as a good news story: "I'm absolutely proud of that number being high."

If people get to decide whether they are doing a good or bad job, they would be likely to say they are doing a good job. But saying so doesn't make it a fact, and media curiosity should not have ended there.

The problem is this: Saint John has long had a very high rate of sexual assaults. For several decades, in fact. Since long before new victim programs were put in place.

In other words, there is likely a real problem, but police and others are acting as if it's been solved already. Their reasoning feels a lot like the logic used by those who believed the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq only proved that they really were there. Circular logic.

The other reason to doubt that Saint John sexual assault victims are so keen to report is that not much happens after they lay complaints of sexual assaults with the Saint John police. Saint John has usually had a very low rate of charges being laid as a result of reports of sexual assaults.

So it comes down to this: Saint John has a high rate of reported sexual assaults. That has to be treated as a bad news story until proven otherwise.

Anyone who cares about victims does them a disservice by saying, "We're fine, there's no problem here," not only because they don't know what they don't know, but also because the problem remains.

If we could ever get to the bottom of the issue and confirm that Saint John is doing the best job in Canada of getting victims to report their sexual assault, then that still leaves the fact of all those sexual assaults. A real solution to these crimes would be to prevent them. Helping victims after the fact doesn't count as prevention.

eMail: jody.dallaire@rogers.com 

© Copyright 2012 Jody Dallaire, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca