Parents, how do you feel about risk?

Cote- you say 822 children were abducted by strangers last year. Can you explain why this did not make the news?

"it's the parents of young children who worry most about abductions, not the parents of teenagers, and yet teens are at more risk of being lured"

True, the Probability of a teenager being abducted is higher. However, the Consequence (as in the Risk calculation formula) of a small child's abduction will usually be assigned a higher value - he can't defend himself, he can't escape, he can't call his parents or the police and tell them where he is. Even if he survives, he will soon forget his former life. As a parent, you can at least believe that your teenager has a reasonable chance of successfully fighting off an attacker or escaping at some point.

The report that data is from also gives the reasons why the numbers have gone up recently:

a spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: ??There has been a considerable focus in the police service in recent years to improve crime-recording practices,?? which in turn has led to an increase in the statistics.

Also:

Experts think the reason might be changing crime-recording practices, and the Rotherdam scandal, which has seen the way abductions and kidnappings are dealt with re-evaluated.

I suspect if you looked at the stats on missing children you might see the rest of the pattern, teenagers previously thought to have run away now thought to have been abducted/lured away.

In my experience it's the parents of young children who worry most about abductions, not the parents of teenagers, and yet teens are at more risk of being lured, often by men posing as boyfriends.

"A simple headline saying that child abduction is on the increase is scare mongering."

I'm not looking at your report with 2011/2012 data. I'm looking at the Excel spreadsheet I linked to earlier, where child abduction data can be compared by year:

April 2012 - March 2013................... 513
April 2013 - March 2014................... 565
April 2014 - March 2015 .................. 822

You claim to have taught mathematics at some point, so I would certainly hope that you can see that child abductions have indeed been increasing over the last two years.

Most incidents occurred when children were accompanied by their peers (67.9%).

That's interesting too - how many incidents happened between 'peers'?

Lots more questions.

CoteDAzur, the numbers you have quoted are a great example of how open to interpretation statistics are: 822 abductions in a year = more than 15/week.
I question the use of the word 'abduction' here - 'lured away', yes, maybe. Likely by a neighbour/uncle/friend of the family/somebody they met in a night club etc etc. which meets the criteria 'not by a parent'. But the vast majority of these cases it's not children playing football at the end of their street or in the park, taken away by men with the promises of sweeties or to see their puppies, it really is not.

And yy to the perception of risk and a lack of understanding between 'relative risk' and 'absolute risk': the doubling of a risk may seem dangerous, however the doubling of a minute risk to start off with, is still a tiny risk of the event actually happening.

I really don't understand this data, and I can't decide whether this means I'm thick or that the data is confusing.

1 in 605 children experience actual abduction by a stranger? That can't possibly be right, surely? That's means that, for example, 2 children in most secondary schools will have actually been abducted by a stranger.

I in 59 experience attempted abduction by a stranger? That's at least 2 in most primary schools.........

I think we need a)sources for the data b)definitions of stranger, child and abduction.

"attempted abductions by a stranger (186 in 2011/12)"

From your document (page 7):
Abductions by a stranger
The police data included 247 cases (273 victims) where a child was abducted by a stranger. Three-quarters were attempted abductions.
These figures are a poor indicator of the actual level of child abduction by a stranger in the UK. Gallagher et al. (2008) indicate that at least one in 59 children will experience some form of attempted abduction by a stranger in the course of their childhood. At least one in 605 children will experience an actual abduction by a stranger.

By the way, these numbers are based on 2011/2012 crime figures, where total child abduction number was 592. As I said in a post below, 2014/2015 figure is 822, 39% higher than the numbers you are citing.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, child abductions are on the rise, 42% are abducted by a stranger (from page 6 of your document), and it is not unreasonable for parents to worry about their child being abducted.

"how come we don't hear about these children who are abducted at the rate of 1 a week by complete strangers?"

If nobody hears a tree fall in a forest, it has still fallen.

"it's teenage girls who are abducted and raped who feature heavily in those stats"

Actually, no. As I wrote in the post you replied to, incidents which start with abduction but go on to result in a more serious offence, e.g. rape or even murder, are not recorded as child abductions because only the more serious offence is recorded.

Which means that the real abduction number is much higher.

Where did you find that number 45, Kevin?

I just looked up the numbers, as well:

900 child abductions were reported in the UK during 2014. Between 2013 and 2014, 401 children were abducted by people other than their parents (for instance, when a stranger lures a child in with sweets).

More recently, 822 children were abducted in the 12 months between April 2014 and March 2015, showing a 45% increase from the previous year. To find this number, click on the 4th link on this page on the Office of National Statistics Website. It's in Table 4.

Going back about 10 years, it wasn't any different: Home Office report from 2004, which looked at 798 police reports of child abduction in England and Wales. Just over half (399) were attempted abductions. Out of the 798 reports, 56% (447) involved a stranger, 47% (375) were attempted abductions by a stranger and 9% (72) of all reports were successful child abductions by a stranger . 23% (183) of all reported abductions were parental.

And the real numbers are probably much higher: Incidents which start with abduction but go on to result in a more serious offence, e.g. rape or even murder, are not recorded as child abductions because only the more serious offence is recorded.

Actually as we are talking about risk, the risk of chocking increases as we get older.

Now what about saying that we should have all over 50s have their grapes and cherry tomatoes cut in half to prevent choking as they are the ones the most at risk?

YY to be 'made to believe'.
Sometimes it's part of an agenda 'for the good cause' (I suspect the chocking stuff is one of them).
Sometimes its because newspaper/TV need sensational stuff to keep going and sell.
Sometimes it's because we are already so convinced that our distorted view of reality is the truth that we are happy to 'sell'anything that sort of prove that view of reality.