Estimates of the Incidence, Prevalence, and Seriousness of Child Abuse
The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO, 2011) issued a report that concluded that more accurate
statistics are needed because it is difficult to determine the true depth and breadth of the problem in the absence of reliable information. The two official sources of crime statistics, the FBI’s UCR and the BJS’s NCVS, contain no data about child maltreatment’s incidence (the number of new cases that come to light each year) and prevalence (the proportion of youth who have ever suffered this form of victimiza- tion). The UCR monitors the age of murder vic- tims, but not all homicides against youngsters were carried out by abusive parents or caretakers. The NCVS does not ask respondents younger than 12 about any illegal acts committed against them. Therefore, researchers must turn to other sources of official statistics.
One source of government data comes from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Its Children’s Bureau, in conjunction with the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, periodically carries out a congressionally mandated National Incidence Study (NIS) of Child Abuse and Neglect. The NIS gath- ers statistics about children whose mistreatment was investigated by state CPS but it also obtains infor- mation about cases that were screened out by CPS agencies and not looked into, as well as incidents that came to the attention of child welfare profes- sionals but not CPS agencies. Therefore, the NIS database is more inclusive than other data collection systems.
The NIS survey defined maltreatment as encom- passing both abuse and neglect. Abuse can harm children in three ways: physically, sexually, and emo- tionally. Neglect can hurt youngsters in three ways: physically, emotionally, and educationally.
The fourth and most recent NIS study analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of 122 counties during the study year 2005–2006. It found that more than 1.25 million children suffered harm- ful maltreatment. That number corresponds to a rate of one child out of every 58, which was more than 2 percent of all youngsters growing up in the Untied States at that time. Of those who were abused, 58 percent were hurt physically,
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24 percent were harmed sexually, and 27 percent experienced emotional abuse. Of those who were neglected, 47 percent were hurt educationally, 38 percent suffered physically, and 25 percent were harmed emotionally. The percents exceed 100 per- cent because some children were abused or neglected in more than one way (ACF, 2010).
The other source of official statistics also comes from the ACF. It is the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). Since 1990, the ACF has issued annual Child Maltreatment reports based on statistics collected from CPS (but also called child welfare agencies) in the 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Well over 3 million reports were filed with the state agencies across the country, but only about one- fifth of them were supported by enough evidence to make a determination that the child was indeed a victim. Therefore, about 685,000 children were deemed to be abused or neglected, yielding a vic- timization rate of about 9 out of every 1,000 chil- dren in the population during 2012 (fiscal year). More than 75 percent experienced neglect; more than 15 percent endured physical abuse; and nearly 10 percent suffered sexual abuse, according to the annual Child Maltreatment report based on the NCANDS database (ACF, 2013).
Note that the NCANDS figure (685,000) is a much smaller number than the NIS estimate (1.25 million) because the two systems use definitions and methods of collecting data that are substantially dif- ferent (also, but less important, they were for two recent but different years). Maximalists sharply dis- agree with minimalists over how these two sets of numbers should be interpreted, and what actions need to be taken to more effectively bring the problem under control.