Child Sexual Abuse - How Frequent Is Abuse?

Each year the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) collects child maltreatment data from child protective services (CPS) agencies in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, releasing the compiled information as Child Maltreatment. The federally mandated National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS) is another source that shows the extent of child sexual abuse. As of 2004 three national incidence studies had been conducted—NIS-1 (1980), NIS-2 (1986), and NIS-3 (1993). In 2003 the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act (Public Law 108-36) directed the collection of data for NIS-4. A third source of sexual abuse data is retrospective studies, which are surveys of adults about their childhood experience of sexual abuse. Within this source type are periodic federal government surveys of jail inmates and prisoners regarding their experience of child sexual abuse.

According to the DHHS, in 1976 an estimated six thousand substantiated child sexual abuse cases were reported by CPS agencies in the United States, representing a rate of 0.86 per 10,000 children. By 1986, the number of reported cases had risen to 132,000, with a rate of 20.9 per 10,000 children. The number of substantiated child sexual abuse cases peaked at an estimated 149,800 in 1992, a rate of 23 per 10,000 children. (The current rate used by the DHHS is 2.3 per one thousand children.) Since then the numbers declined to approximately 129,000 cases in 1995, about 89,000 in 2000, and an estimated 89,700 in 2002.

Determining the Extent of Child Sexual Abuse through Retrospective Studies

David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, is a national authority on child sexual abuse. In "Current Information on the Scope and Nature of Child Sexual Abuse" (The Future of Children: Sexual Abuse of Children, vol. 4, no. 2, Summer/Fall 1994), Finkelhor noted that surveys of adults regarding their childhood experiences (called retrospective studies) probably give the most complete estimates of the actual extent of child sexual abuse. He reviewed nineteen adult retrospective surveys and found that the proportion of adults who indicated sexual abuse during childhood ranged widely, from 2% to 62% for females and from 3% to 16% for males.

Finkelhor observed that the surveys that reported higher levels of abuse were those that asked multiple questions about the possibility of abuse. Multiple questions are more effective because they provide respondents various "cues" about the different kinds of experiences the researchers are asking about. Multiple questions also give the respondents ample time to overcome their embarrassment. Many experts accept the estimate that one of five (20%) American women and one of ten (10%) American men have experienced some form of childhood sexual abuse.

Some Victims May Not Be Counted

Estimates of the number of sexual abuse cases generally do not include victims of pornographic exploitation and child prostitution. These types of child abuse have only recently become subjects of research, and while they are known to involve multimillion-dollar businesses, little is known about the numbers of child victims involved.

The estimates also do not include stranger abductions, often for sexual purposes, that result in the death of the child. The Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NIS-MART-2) found that, during the study year 1999, an estimated 58,200 children were victims of nonfamily abductions (David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Andrea J. Sedlak, Nonfamily Abducted Children: National Estimates and Characteristics, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, October 2002). The study also reported an estimated 115 cases of stereotypical kidnapping, the kind that make it to the news because of their seriousness or duration. The authors noted that the larger number of 58,200 resulted from using a broad definition of nonfamily abduction.

Abduction is typically associated with very serious life-and-death situations involving strangers. Abduction, however, according to legal definition, may involve less serious cases. For its incidence study, NISMART-2 used two definitions: stereotypical kidnapping and nonfamily abduction. Stereotypical kidnapping refers to kidnapping committed by a stranger or a slight acquaintance who keeps the child overnight, transports the child fifty or more miles, takes the child for ransom, or takes the child to keep him permanently or to kill him. (A slight acquaintance may be a person the child has known for less than six

TABLE 6.1

Characteristics of nonfamily abducted children, 1999
	All Nonfamily Abduction Victims (n=58,200)		Stereotypical Kidnapping Victims (n=115)		Percent of U.S. Child Population* (N 70,172,700)
Characteristic of Child	Percent	Estimate	Percent	Estimate
Note: All estimates are rounded to the nearest 100. Percents may not sum to 100 because of rounding.
* Age, gender, and race for the U.S. population were based on the average monthly estimates of the population ages 0–17 years for 1999 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000a). The regional distribution of the population was computed from State-by-State estimates of the population ages 0–17 as of July 1, 1999 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000b).
1Estimate is based on too few sample cases to be reliable.
2n/a = not available.
SOURCE: David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Andrea J. Sedlak, "Table 2: Characteristics of Nonfamily Abducted Children," in Nonfamily Abducted Children: National Estimates and Characteristics, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, October 2002
Age (years)
0–5	71	4,3001	19	20	33
6–11	121	6,8001	24	25	34
12–14	221	13,0001	38	45	17
15–17	59	34,100	20	20	17
Gender
Male	351	20,3001	31	35	51
Female	65	37,900	69	80	49
Race/ethnicity
White, non-Hispanic	35	20,500	72	80	65
Black, non-Hispanic	421	24,5001	19	20	15
Hispanic	231	13,2001	81	101	16
Other	<11	<1001	21	<51	5
Region
Northeast	<12	<1001	n/a2	n/a	18
Midwest	33	19,300	n/a	n/a	23
South	382	21,9001	n/a	n/a	35
West	291	16,9001	n/a	n/a	24
No information	<12	1002	100	115	—

months. The person may be someone the child has known for more than six months but has seen less than once a month. A slight acquaintance may also be a person the child does not know well enough to have spoken to.) Non-family abduction includes stereotypical kidnapping as well as less serious kidnappings. It may involve luring a child for purposes of collecting ransom or keeping the child permanently. It may also involve the forceful transporting of a child or the detention of a child for at least an hour.

Children ages twelve to seventeen accounted for an estimated 81% of nonfamily abductions and for about 58% of stereotypical kidnappings. About two-thirds of the victims of both nonfamily (65%) and stereotypical (69%) abductions were girls. The authors noted that, in most cases, abductions were carried out for sexual purposes. Although the sample cases showed that more non-Hispanic African-American children (42%) than non-Hispanic white children (35%) were involved in nonfamily abductions, the larger proportion for African-Americans may just be due to the sample studied. Among child victims of stereotypical kidnapping, there were nearly four times as many white victims (72%) as African-Americans (19%). (See Table 6.1.)

TABLE 6.2

Characteristics of nonfamily abduction perpetrators, by relationship, gender, and age, 1999
Characteristic of perpetrator	Percent of all nonfamily abduction victims (n=58,200)	Percent of stereotypical kidnapping victims (n=115)
*Estimate based on too few sample cases to be reliable.
Notes: n = sample size. By definition, stereotypical kidnappings are limited to cases involving strangers and slight acquaintances.
SOURCE: David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Andrea J. Sedlak, "Table 3: Characteristics of Nonfamily Abduction Perpetrators," in Nonfamily Abducted Children: National Estimates and Characteristics, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, October 2002, http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/nismart/03/ns4.html (accessed November 23,2004)
Identity of main perpetrator
Friend	17*	—
Long-term acquaintance	21*	—
Neighbor	5*	—
Authority person	6*	—
Caretaker or babysitter	4*	—
Stranger	37*	71†
Slight acquaintance	8*	29†
Someone else	3*	—
More than one perpetrator
Yes	21*	48
No	79	41
No information	<1*	11*
Main perpetrator's gender
Male	75	86
Female	25*	7*
No information	<1*	7*
Main perpetrator's age (years)
13–19	25*	21
20–29	42*	36
30–39	12*	21
40–49	16*	7*
50–89	5*	4*
No information	<1*	10*

More than half (53%) of perpetrators of nonfamily abductions were people known to the child, including neighbors, authority figures, friends, long-term acquaintances, and caregivers. Strangers made up more than one-third (37%) of nonfamily abductors. Most perpetrators of nonfamily (75%) and stereotypical (86%) kidnapping were males. (See Table 6.2.) Almost half of the victims of nonfamily abductions (46%) and stereotypical kidnappings (49%) were sexually assaulted.