Why Critics of New York Times “Law and Order – Vets in America” Series Are Also Statistically Challenged

Trevor Butterworth

A lot of people have gotten carried away by the suggestive statistics in the New York Times story on veterans and homicide rates, to the point of adding suggestive statistics of their own (see here, here and here).

First of all, comparing the homicide rate of veterans with the homicide rate of the general population aged 18-34 and then noting that the latter is higher than the former (ergo, combat is not predictive of increased PTSD, violence or whatever) is a poor way of conceptualizing an answer to the question of whether exposure to combat is predictive of increased rates of violence in veterans. Here’s why:

Soldiers who experience combat are a unique sample of the population: they are, in the main, highly trained and highly disciplined. And in combat they are exposed to highly unusual stresses.

They are not directly comparable to dentists who commit homicide or don’t commit homicide, or to violent or pacific nuns, or – more to the point – drug dealers, gang members and any other social group where lack of empathy, social circumstances and/or other factors drive high rates of homicide and violence. The general homicide rate in the population tells us very little about who is committing homicides or why. The best it does is show rate by age and race – and no, surprise, young men tend to be at the top of the heap.

One would expect, given the training and discipline of army life (and the fact that the services do a good job of discharging those with “problems”) that soldiers, generally, would have lower homicide rates than the general population, which they do. But simply pointing this out forecloses the key question – does combat, or a certain amount of combat, or even a certain kind of combat lead to the kinds of stress that foreshadow violence?