Child abuse, US

Child Abuse - US

Several of the links below are no longer active. Recent data and the equivalent for several previous years can be found via: National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information

or follow this link to look at annual US Child Maltreatment Reports

UPDATE 2000

The material discussed below is for 1996. 1998 US data are now available at: Child Abuse and Neglect National Statistics

It includes the following information on perpetrators:

Three-fifths (60.4%) of perpetrators were female. Female perpetrators were typically younger than their male counterparts, as reflected by the difference in their respective median ages, 31 and 34.
More than four-fifths (87.1%) of all victims were maltreated by one or both parents. The most common pattern of maltreatment was a child neglected by a female parent with no other perpetrators identified (44.7%).
Victims of physical and sexual abuse, compared to victims of neglect and medical neglect, were more likely to be maltreated by a male parent acting alone. In cases of sexual abuse, more than half of victims (55.9%) were abused by male parents, male relatives, or other males.

The latter point is quite surprising. Reworded, it states that 43.1% of sexual abuse victims were not abused by males (i.e. they were abused by females only).

More reports and statistics can be accessed via the Children's Bureau. These include the 1996 report discussed below:

CHILD MALTREATMENT 1996: Reports From the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System

including the following tables:

Table 2-7 Perpetrators by Sex and Age

Table 2-8 Type of Maltreatment by Sex of Perpetrator

The site also has the 1997 report, CHILD MALTREATMENT 1997: Reports From the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System

Perpetrators are described in Section 7

The following information is from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Statistical Fact Sheet (link no longer active) on the web page of the Child Abuse and Neglect Clearinghouse in the US.

It is sourced to: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Child Maltreatment 1996: Reports from the States to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998).

The national rate of children who were reported was 44 per 1,000 children in the population.
Reports were received from professionals (52 percent), persons in the families of the victims, including parents, other relatives, and the victims themselves (18 percent), and friends and neighbors (9 percent). Twenty percent of reports were from other or anonymous persons.
It is estimated that almost two-thirds of substantiated or indicated reports were from professional sources--education, social services, law enforcement, and medicine.
The national rate of victimization was 15 victims per 1,000 children in the population.

Comments:

If the victimisation rate coincides with "substantiated or indicated", then say 10 out of the 15 victims per thousand children are reported by professionals, and say 22 out of 44 reports per thousand are from professionals. In other words, just under half of the reports from professionals (10 out of 22) turn out to be "substantiated or indicated".

This leaves 5 victims out of the other 22 reports per thousand children. In other words, less than a quarter of reports by relatives, friends, those claiming to be victims, or by anonymous persons are found to be substantiated or indicated.

The report also states that:

More than half (52 percent) of all victims suffered neglect, while almost a quarter (24 percent) suffered physical abuse. About 12 percent of the victims were sexually abused.
It is estimated that over 80 percent of all perpetrators were under age 40 and that almost two-thirds were females.
An estimated three-quarters of neglect and medical neglect cases were associated with female perpetrators, while almost three-quarters of sexual abuse cases were associated with male perpetrators.

Comments:

If "almost three-quarters of sexual abuse cases were associated with male perpetrators", then over a quarter of such cases were not. In other words, in over a quarter of sexual abuse cases, the perpetrator or perpetrators were all female. Female perpetrators could also have been involved, together with male perpetrators, in some of the other cases of sexual abuse.
In 1996 15 per 1000, or 1.5%, of US children suffered child abuse or neglect. 12% of these (0.18% of all children) suffered sexual abuse, in 3/4 of which there was a male perpetrator.
If we make the unrealistic assumption that all child sexual abuse victims were female, then 0.36% of female children in the United States were victims of sexual abuse in 1996.

There are some more figures on the incidence of various types of abuse here.

Some more information can be found at Child Abuse and Neglect Statistics from the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (dated 1995). In particular, for 1994:

"Currently, about 47 out of every 1,000 children are reported as victims of child maltreatment."

And:

"In 1994, 1,036,000 children were substantiated by CPS as victims of child maltreatment. This represents 16 out of every 1,000 U.S. children."

Note that rates of reporting were about three times rates of substantiated cases.

Either there is a much greater awareness, or far broader definitions now than a few years earlier, however:

"In 1986, approximately 22.6 children per 1,000 experienced abuse or neglect. Only half of these incidents were reported to CPS agencies (Sedlak, 1990)."

So in 1986 only about 11.3 children per thousand were reported, compared to 47 per thousand in 1994. These data do not tell us whether there has been a major increase in abuse, or simply that a far higher proportion of abuse cases are reported. The figures do not quite match, however:

"Overall, child abuse reporting levels have increased 63% between 1985 and 1994."

As for types of maltreatment:

"According to the 1994 survey, physical abuse represented 21% of confirmed cases, sexual abuse 11%, neglect 49%, emotional maltreatment 3% and other forms of maltreatment 16%."

So sexual abuse cases represented 11% of confirmed cases. If "confirmed" is equivalent to "substantiated", the 1.76 out of every 1000 children in the US were confirmed to have been sexually abused in 1994.

There appears to be wide variation in the results from more general studies, although the methodology and nature of the questions are not provided:

"Studies of the general population of adults show that anywhere from 6 to 63% of females were sexually abused as children. A 1985 L.A. Times national survey found that 27% of women and 16% of men reported being sexually abused prior to age 18 (Finkelhor, 1986). The true extent of sexual abuse is unknown."

There is more information particularly on sexual abuse of boys here in chapter 2 of The Invisible Boy.

Stuart Birks

Originally prepared 6 May, 1998. Last updated 13 June 2003