Library: Abuse

HHS Publishes 2000 Child Abuse Report Data
Summary

The annual report on child abuse data issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is now available after being held up for several months in administrative review. Usually, the report comes out of HHS in April - Child Abuse Prevention Month - but this year, only a preliminary summary was released in April.

In addition to more comprehensive data and detailed information than was made public in April, the written document includes state-by-state reporting data. Here are some highlights.

Children Abused and Neglected

• An estimated 879,000 children in the United States were victims of abuse and neglect in 2000, out of about 3 million referrals for suspected maltreatment.
  
   
• Cases of child abuse and neglect rose in 2000 for the first time in seven years, to 12.2 per 1,000 children. Confirmed maltreatment cases peaked in 1993, with 15.3 per 1,000 children. The rate fell for six years, to11.8 per thousand in 1999.
  
   
• Of those child abuse and neglect reports that were confirmed, 62.8 percent suffered neglect, 19.3 percent were physically abused, 10.1 percent were sexually abused and 7.7 percent were psychologically maltreated.
  
   
• The highest victimization rate - 15.7 victims per 1,000 children - was for children aged 0-3.
  
   
• More than half of all victims were white (50.6%); a quarter (24.7%) were African-American; a sixth (14.2%) were Hispanic; Native Americans accounted for 1.6% of victims; and Asian-Pacific Islanders were 1.4% of victims.
   
• Children who had been victimized in a prior year were more than three times as likely to experience recurrence of maltreatment than other children. The report says, “For most children who experience maltreatment recurrence, the efforts of the CPS system have not been successful in preventing subsequent victimization.”

Perpetrators

• Consistent with previous years, 84 percent of victims were abused by a parent, and the most common pattern was a “female parent acting alone".

Fatalities

• About 1,200 children died of abuse or neglect in 2000, a small increase from 1999 that HHS officials believe is due to improved reporting.
  
   
• Children younger than 1 year old accounted for 43.7 percent of fatalities, and 85.1 percent of fatalities were younger than 6.
  
   
• Less than one-third (30.2%) of child fatalities were attributed to “Mother Only”, compared to 40% for all victims of maltreatment.
  
   
• Maltreatment deaths were more often associated just with neglect (34.9%) than any other single type of abuse. (According to secondary analysis of the maltreatment reporting data in Child Welfare Outcomes 1999: Annual Report, the correlation between the percentages of child victims experiencing neglect and of children living in poverty was not significant.)

Referrals

• Each week CPS agencies receive more than 50,000 reports, and almost two-thirds (61.7%) were screened in and deemed appropriate for investigation.
  
   
• Professionals submitted more than half (56.1%) of the screened-in reports.
  
   
• The three most common sources of reports were education personnel (16.1%), legal or law enforcement (15.2%), and social services (14.4%).
  
   
• More than half (58.4%) of investigations led to a finding of “unsubstantiated.” In each of the past four years, the percentage of unsubstantiated reports has been less than 60%.
  
   
• The average response time from submission of the report to investigation was 54 hours. In 1999, it was 64 hours.

Services

• The average time from start of investigation to provision of services was 35.8 days.
  
   
• Slightly more than half of child victims (55.4%) received services.
  
   
• About one-fifth of child victims (20.8%) were removed from their homes as a result of investigations.
  
   
• Preventive services - such as respite care, home visits, family counseling, parenting education - funded by CAPTA, by Title IV-B Promoting Safe and Stable Families, and Title XX Social Services Block Grant, were received by an estimated 3 million children.
  
   
• Victims of prior maltreatment were 80% more likely to receive services than children with no prior victimization.
  
   
• Children younger than 4 years old were more likely to receive services.

The full report - Child Maltreatment 2000 - has been posted on the web site of the Administration for Children and Families at

• www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb
• http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb

Print copies may be obtained from the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect