Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics

Before anyone reads this and gets all het up with me, keep in mind I am not saying there is no problem, I am saying I think there's a problem with the numbers. 

Numbers reported in this story say there are between 200,000 and 300,000 underage girls being prostituted in the US. Take the low number in the range. Leave out the really young girls below the age of 10. (We could put them in here – the only reason to leave them out is because I don't think the article is focused on that age group, but more at the 10-18 year group, just from the wording. Also, the study linked later discusses 10-17 year olds only.)

According to the 2000 census, there are about 40.7 million children between the ages of 10 and 19. Assume a 50% split male and female, leaving 20.4 million females in that age group. Dividing then, it comes out to about 1 out of every 100 female children. (If you add in the lower ages groups it changes to about 1 in 200.)

That seems high to me. Why? Let's look at this from the client standpoint. The article states one girl had as many as 17 johns in one evening. Let's take just 5 as a number. Let's assume even working two nights a week and working a total of 3 weeks out of four (39 weeks a year).  So 200,000 X 5 X 2 X 39 = 78,000,000 paid sex acts for just the under-aged prostitutes. But we're told these girls are making a lot of money for their exploiters, so the actual numbers of paid sex acts would have to be even higher than that. So go to the other extreme: 200,000 X 10 X 7 X 52 = 728,000,000 paid sex acts. First number alone seems unworkable. The second number? No way in hell.

The article states the majority of these under-aged girls are concentrated in 14 major areas. Let's take exactly half of the estimated (low) figure of 200,000 and put it in 14 cities. That's over 7,000 underage prostitutes in each of the cities. Again, that sounds like a lot to me. Using the same method as above the number of paid sex acts ranges from 2,730,000 to 25,480,000. That's just number of paid sex acts for under-aged prostitutes. In one city with 7,000 under-aged prostitutes. The low number averages out to about 7,500 paid sex acts per day just for under-aged prostitutes. In one city. Nationwide (low figure) it would be over 200,000 every single day of the week.

Add in prostitutes over the age of 18, assume the additional population equals that of the under-aged and using the low figure you're at 15,000 paid sex acts per day in the 14 cities and 400,000 each and every day across the country. That's 146,000,000 per year or greater than the male population of the US.

People would notice that kind of traffic, wouldn't they?

I'm thinking the researchers over-estimated based on high concentrations in certain areas. I'm not saying they did it intentionally, just that I think they did it wrong.

Now, advocacy groups have a vested interest in getting attention focused on the cause they are advocating, right? One way to do that is to get media coverage. The best way to ensure that the media wants to cover their story is to present a lurid statistic. That is like a bright, shiny object to a reporter. But I really detest numbers that can't possibly be right being thrown around like this.

Actually, the study I think they are quoting is this one. It doesn't say exactly what is being represented in the article.

Be that as it may, there is a big problem. In my opinion, if there is even one child being forced into prostitution something needs to be done. So, here's the way to fix it. Make pimping an under-aged person (either sex) a crime punishable by death. Make knowingly patronizing an under-aged prostitute a capital offense as well. Problem solved. See how easy that was?