Researchers use two terms—incidence and prevalence—to describe the estimates of the number of victims of child abuse and neglect. Andrea J. Sedlak and Diane D. Broadhurst defined incidence as the number of new cases occurring in the population during a given period (Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect [NIS-3], U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Nation…
The 1974 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA; Public Law 93-247) created the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) to coordinate nationwide efforts to protect children from maltreatment. As part of the former U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, NCCAN commissioned the American Humane Association (AHA) to collect data from the states. The first time the AHA co…
Collecting child maltreatment data from the states is difficult because each state has its own method of gathering and classifying the information. Most states collect data on an incident basis; that is, they count each time a child is reported for abuse or neglect. If the same child is reported several times in one year, each incident is counted. Consequently, the number of incidents of child mal…
In 2002 an estimated 896,000 children were victims of maltreatment in the United States, down from 903,000 in 2001. A total of 12.3 children for every one thousand children in the population were victims of abuse or neglect. While this rate of victimization was higher than that for 1999 (11.8 per one thousand children), it was lower than the rates for the previous years in the 1990s. The rate of m…
The law considers perpetrators to be those persons who abuse or neglect children under their care. They may be parents, foster parents, other relatives, or other caretakers. In 2002 more than two of five victims (40.3%) were maltreated by their mother acting alone. Another 19.1% experienced maltreatment from their father acting alone. Eighteen percent were maltreated by both parents. About 5.4% of…
Child fatality is the most severe result of abuse and neglect. In 2002 CPS and other state agencies, including coroners' offices and fatality review boards, reported an estimated 1,390 deaths from child maltreatment, up from 1,373 deaths in 2001 and 1,306 deaths in 2000. The 2002 national fatality rate was nearly two deaths per one hundred thousand children in the general population. The Di…
The National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS) was a congressionally mandated periodic survey of child maltreatment. The results of the first NIS were published in 1981, and those of the second NIS (NIS-2) in 1988. The most recent NIS, the Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, (NIS-3) (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center on Child Abuse …
The most recent government survey revealed that, in 2002, an estimated 896,000 children under age eighteen were victims of maltreatment. Steve Crabtree reported that a 2003 nationwide survey of teenagers, ages thirteen to seventeen, found that more than one-third (36%) indicated they knew of a person their age who had been physically or sexually abused ("One-Third of Teens Know of Abuse Amo…
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