Better security blankets
It is hard to imagine that there are many subjects more sensitive than monsters potentially getting away with infanticide. Idaho is behind the times for way too many important issues. No disclosure laws and easy-open revolving doors, limited affordable housing, coroners winging it as best they can with the meager tools and skills they have. –The list is long.
Yet, the statistics presented here regarding infant deaths are not convincing slam-dunks.
First, the article states, ”Only one of every 14 cases of sudden and unexpected infant death was declared by the state’s all-elected coroners to be a homicide.” nowhere does it say what the normal is for the rest of the country, but from what I can glean this seems to be only one out of every 12.
The graph in today’s Statesman print edition is equally muddled, incomplete and holds limited convincingness.
The chart looked like this:
A case for increased child death review
Detection of infant homicides and accidental suffocations improves with increased child death review. Figures show the percentage of U.S. sudden infant deaths diagnosed as either suffocation of homicides.
Accidental Suffocation / Homicide
No Child Death review 7.1 percent 7.1 percent
State Review only 9.2 percent 7.5 percent
Local Review only 12.4 percent 8.0 percent
State and Local Review 15.3 percent 9.0 percent
Source: Scripps Howard analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mortality data based upon 21,990 infant deaths from 2000 to 2004, including homicides.
What we are left wondering is which categories of infant death are missing? And how much of each are those are reduced when the deaths that are deemed accidental suffocations and homicides slightly rise?
It is certainly extremely sad when, parents who are already traumatized due to the death of a beloved one, are told that the resources are limited to investigate their child’s death, and that’s as far as it’s going to go.
Yet, there seems to be a mixed message in this report, which is perhaps babies are generally safer in Idaho, yet some homicides are going undetected.
Also the article states,
Also the article states, “If the entire nation detected infant homicides at the rate in Arizona, nearly 700 baby killings would be reported each year. But if the nation detected infant murders as infrequently as Idaho, the annual homicide figure would drop below 300.
Then it goes on to say in a contradictory manner:
In 2004, the most recent year for which complete information is available, medical authorities reported 379 infant homicides. The figure has been closer to 300 in other recent years.
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