« Courts - "She lost temper on state bench, but now lands new role" | Main | Ind. Courts - Mistake in filing may keep Cass Circuit jdge candidate off the ballot »
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Ind. Courts - Indiana doesn't keep annual divorce numbers
Niki Kelly of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports today:
[T]here is no annual divorce rate for Indiana; no way to accurately tell how many people got divorced in Indiana last year or any other year.In fact, national reports on divorce statistics contain an “n/a” next to Indiana – data not available.
To some, the lack of data is an interesting side note, but several lawmakers expressed concern that some legislation is pushed based on an assumption of a high divorce rate.
“It certainly seems to me that it’s a statistic we ought to track, especially in connection to keeping families intact,” House Speaker Brian Bosma said.
In fact, Bosma insisted the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency has such a number, noting that a 50 percent divorce rate is often cited in testimony on bills before the General Assembly.
The Legislative Services Agency, though, ran into the same problem, noting that most states have divorce rates per 1,000 members of the population while information for Indiana is not available.
Other states that don’t track divorce data are California, Georgia, Hawaii and Louisiana.
State Court Administration – a division of the Indiana Supreme Court – keeps all kinds of statistics and one of them comes close to tracking Hoosier divorces but is not totally accurate.
That might be why national and state information centers – including the federal Division of Vital Statistics – aren’t using the statistics, said Tom Carusillo – director of trial court services for State Court Administration.
He noted that divorce cases are filed in county courthouses under a domestic relations heading.
In 2004, according to the Indiana Judicial Service Report, 37,410 domestic relations cases were filed and 36,138 were disposed. The numbers differ because many cases span a significant time period.
But the problem is that domestic relations cases aren’t just divorces – technically called dissolutions in Indiana.
They also include legal separations, which are rare, and more typical petitions to establish child support. On occasion, grandparents even file for custody under this heading.
There is no way, Carusillo said, to know how many of those domestic relations cases actually are divorces on a statewide basis.
“I don’t know if anyone has ever sat down and thought about it,” he said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 10, 2006 08:02 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts | Indiana Government