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Bogus divorce rates fuel new laws
NWI Times
Sep 14, 1997
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/bogus-divorce-rates-fuel-new-laws/article_cf6acc03-326a-5237-9c24-f6cb24259af3.html
State's rates
The last year in which divorce figures for Indiana were consistently collected was 1990 and the numbers for the state were called incomplete. The state and national median rates per thousand population that year were:
Indiana - 6.3
United States - 4.7
The numbers say Indiana's divorce rate is among the nation's highest, perhaps even the second worst.
As a result, some state legislators are trying to make it harder for couples to get a divorce.
"Every year we want to tinker with (divorce laws) without actually knowing the breadth of the problem. Everyone just assumes it's a large problem," said state Sen. William Alexa, D-Valparaiso, who supports the establishment of a unified family court system in Indiana.
But the data being used to support such changes offer only snapshots.
The big picture is elusive because Indiana is the only state not even trying to count the actual number of marriage dissolutions.
Moreover, what numbers the National Center for Health Statistics did manage to gather for Indiana were so unreliable the federal agency stopped collecting them in 1990.
Second-highest divorce rate?
The omission of a statewide method for tracking final divorce decrees came to light when a popular national magazine, George, recently ranked Indiana's divorce rate just behind Nevada's.
"You wonder how they measured that," said state Rep. Michael Dvorak, D-Granger, a member of the Indiana House Standing Committee on Families, Children and Human Affairs.
The answer is they really couldn't. George's researchers relied on statistics provided by a private agency, the Indiana Family Institute.
The agency supports several pieces of legislation aimed at tightening the state's divorce laws. Prominent among its goals is lengthening the minimum waiting period before a final hearing from 60 to 120 days under certain conditions.
The legislation also affects matters related to visitation, child support and spousal maintenance.
Dvorak said legislators have to be concerned about the divorce rate and balance it against the privacy issues of a failed marriage.
"It doesn't help when we get false information about the divorce rate," he said.
Adding it up
Since Indiana has no statewide central repository for divorce figures, federal researchers were forced to gather the information county by county through the state's trial courts.
In some cases, such as Lake County, the information had to be gathered "not just county by county but courthouse by courthouse," according to Sherry Murphy, a data collector for the center.
And, according to Murphy and others, not only were the numbers cumbersome to gather, they were also inaccurate.
The agency stopped its efforts altogether in 1990 when it realized the courts were providing numbers that included an array of family court actions, not final divorce decrees.
"It's not a reliable way to get the data," agreed Sally Curtin, who wrote many of the reports for the federal agency.
A review by The Times found that with the exception of a handful of states, most keep tabs of final divorce decrees through their department of public health.
But James Kosowski, a spokesman for the Indiana State Department of Health, hasn't done so in at least 18 years.
"What it boils down to is it's not one of the things the legislature has asked us to do," Kosowski said.
Federal researchers say the state never has provided divorce figures.
The issue becomes even more significant since federal budget cuts forced the National Center for Health Statistics to stop gathering the data in 1995, shifting the chore to the states.
Measuring the problem
Micah Clarke, associate director for the Indiana Family Institute, however, said his agency did provide George with government figures.
But those figures came from a 1994 judicial report designed to track judges' caseloads, not divorce statistics.
A spokesman for the Indiana Legislative Services Agency confirmed a staff person with its Office of Fiscal and Management Analysis tabulated divorce rates using the number of dispositions in domestic relations cases as provided by the trial courts to the Indiana State Court Administrator.
The results led George's researchers to rank Indiana just behind Nevada.
The problem with that method is that dispositions include cases dismissed by the judges. Those cases include couples who may have changed their minds.
In addition, depending on how each court tracks its cases, the numbers may include a variety of litigation related to the divorce, separation or annulment.
"Our figures were not designed to track divorces," said Lilia Judson, acting director for the office of the Indiana State Court Administrator. "Somebody could massage them and get a general idea."
The last figures for Indiana collected by the National Center for Health Statistics were gathered in 1990. Indiana's rate of 6.3 per thousand was well above the then-national median of 4.7 divorces per thousand in population. Indiana's rate had been 7.1 in 1989.
In both years, the data was noted as being "incomplete," according to federal researchers.
Change called for
Clarke and Dvorak were surprised by George magazine's ranking, which was higher than even they suspected.
Clarke said figures he collected in the early 1990s indicated the state was fifth- or sixth-highest in the nation.
"Even if Indiana was in the top 15, I'd be concerned," said Clarke, who believes part of the explanation for the state's high numbers was Indiana's liberal divorce laws.
"What troubles me is someone made a representation on statistics that don't support it," Dvorak said about George's conclusions.
Dvorak said what's needed is cooperation among the state's county clerks, the courts and the health department to compile the numbers so legislators can analyze them correctly.
He would support such an effort, either through an administrative act or legislation, but only if found necessary. "The best thing to do is simply ask the agency head to do it," he said.
But Alexa said improvement is unlikely without legislation.
Alexa believes the data can be obtained only through mandating the county clerks to collect it and then depositing it with a central agency, whether the state health department or the Indiana Family and Social Service Administration.
Alexa added he will support legislation to collect accurate data. "I'd rather see what we're dealing with and craft a solution than the other way around. (The legislature) is good for crafting a solution and then looking for a problem."
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