22 April 2008

TIME Magazine's Numbers

These numbers were on TIME:

742 Number of sexual-assault cases the U.S. Department of Defense has investigated in Iraq and Afghanistan, of which 26 involve attacks on American civilians or contractors

0 Number of civilian cases that have so far been tried in court, according to testimony in recent Defense Department hearings


Read between the lines and you're reading that there are more sexual assaults in the military than in the civilian world.

However, rather than read between the lines, just read the lines. No where in those two sentences does it indicate that there are more sexual assaults in the military. In fact, they are on different points of the legal system spectrum. The 742 sexual assault cases are investigations (no charges and no evidence at this point that says this sexual assualt did happen) while the 0 civilian cases are tried in court (charges have been brought against someone and proof that can prove this sexual assault took place). So how many civilian cases have been investigated? And how many of those investigations that took place in Iraq and Afghanistan have actually been tried in court?

Funny how they don't include those numbers.

3 comments:

The Mrs. said...

It seems more and more with "News" magazines like time and newsweek you have to do a lot of reading between the lines.

by the way I LOVED your comments about my she devil! you know my boys can translate twinkle twinkle to latin. well not so much, but they can sing it!

Mrs. Mootz said...

Yeah, even after re-reading the article and participating in another discussion about it, I understand how it could also be read to suggest that perhaps not enough is being done to bring sexual assault cases to trial in both the military and civilian world. Either way, I don't like the way the numbers were reported.

HAHA! Hearing 2 little kids sing a song in Latin would certainly be enough to impress me (I can't even figure out pig latin). You should record that and put that on the blog!!

The Mrs. said...

oh no they can just sing it in english and very off key. but still cute in my book!

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