Statistics on Child Abuse

Overview For calendar year 2003, an estimated 1,800,000 referrals alleging child abuse or neglect were accepted by State and local child protective services (CPS) agencies for investigation or assessment. The referrals included more than 3 million children, and of those, approximately 896,000 children were determined to be victims of child abuse or neglect by the CPS agencies. How are the data used? Data from the States are used for the annual report, Child Maltreatment, which is published each spring. In addition, data from the States are used systematically to measure the impact and effectiveness of CPS through performance outcome measures. What data are collected? Case-level data on all children who received an investigation or assessment by a CPS agency are collected. Case-level data include information on the characteristics of the referral of abuse or neglect that are made to CPS agencies, the characteristics of the alleged child abuse or neglect victims, the disposition (or finding) and the alleged maltreatments, the risk factors of the child and the caregivers, the services that are provided, and the characteristics of the perpetrators. Victims An estimated 896,000 children were determined to be victims of child abuse or neglect for 2002. The rate of victimization per 1,000 children in the national population has dropped from 13.4 children in 1990 to 12.3 children in 2002. What types of maltreatment were found? More than 60 percent of child victims were neglected by their parents or other caregivers. Almost 20 percent were physically abused, 10 percent were sexually abused, and 7 percent were emotionally maltreated. In addition, almost 20 percent were associated with "other" types of maltreatment based on specific State laws and policies. A child could be a victim of more than one type of maltreatment. What were the characteristics of victims? Children ages birth to three years had the highest rates of victimization at 16.0 per 1,000 children. Girls were slightly more likely to be victims than boys. American Indian or Alaska Native and African-American children had the highest rates of victimization when compared to their national population. While the rate of White victims of child abuse or neglect was 10.7 per 1,000 children of the same race, the rate for American Indian or Alaska Natives was 21.7 per 1,000 children and for African-Americans 20.2 per 1,000 children. The above mentioned statistics are incredibly high. Something should be done in order to reduce the occurence of child maltreatment. For more information please visit www.childabuse.org.