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CHILD MALTREATMENT

  • During a one-year period, 60.6 percent of children and youth from birth to 17 years of age experienced at least one direct or indirect (as a witness) victimization.[1]
  • Almost half (46.3 percent) of children and youth from birth to 17 years of age experienced a physical assault; one in four (24.6 percent) a property offense, 1 in 10 (10.2 percent) child maltreatment, and 6.1 percent a sexual victimization.[2]
  • The youngest children from birth to 3 years of age had the highest rate of abuse and neglect and accounted for the largest percentage of child victims at 32 percent.[3]
  • Just under one-half (46 percent) of all child victims were white, 22 percent were African American, and 21 percent were Hispanic. African American children, American Indian or Alaska Native children, and children of multiple races had the highest rates of victimization.[4]
  • Mothers were the sole abuser in 39 percent of substantiated child abuse cases and fathers in 18 percent. In 17 percent of child abuse cases, both parents were perpetrators of child maltreatment, and child victims maltreated by a non-parental perpetrator accounted for 10 percent of the total.[5]
    Eight percent of child abuse victims had a reported disability.[6]
  • Fifty-seven percent of children will be victims of some form of physical assault during their lifetime, 51 percent will be victims of bullying (emotional or physical) or teasing, and 10 percent of children will be victims of assault with a weapon.[7]
  • In 2007, child protective services found approximately 794,000 children to be victims of child abuse or neglect.[8]
  • During 2007, approximately 1,760 children died due to child abuse or neglect. More than three-quarters (76 percent) of children who were killed were younger than 4 years of age.[9]
  • During 2007, 59 percent of child victims experienced neglect, 11 percent were physically abused, 8 percent were sexually abused, 4 percent were psychologically maltreated, and 1 percent were medically neglected. In addition, 4 percent of child victims experienced other types of maltreatment such as abandonment, threats of harm, or congenital drug addiction.[10]
  • Fifty-two percent of child abuse or neglect victims were girls and 48 percent were boys.[11]
  • Ten percent of children have experienced some form of sexual violence (sexual assault, rape, harassment or flashing) during their lifetime.[12]
  • The older the child victim, the greater the likelihood of being sexually assaulted by an acquaintance: 53 percent of perpetrators against children ages 6 to 11 were acquaintances, as were 66 percent of perpetrators against adolescents ages 12 to 17.[13]
  • Strangers are the least likely perpetrators of sexual assault against children in cases reported to law enforcement: 3 percent of the youngest victims ages five and under, 5 percent of six- to eleven-year-olds, and 10 percent of teen victims were sexually assaulted by strangers.[14]
  • Fifty-one children were killed by their babysitter in 2008, representing 3 percent of child murder victims.[15]
  • A meta-analysis of 61 studies found that 12.7 percent of child molesters were convicted for a new sex offense within four to five years.[16]
  • The most significant predictor of whether a battered woman will physically abuse her child is having been physically abused by her own mother, not whether she has been battered by her partner.[17]
  • The direct cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States totals more than $33 billion annually. (This figure includes law enforcement, judicial system, child welfare, and health care costs.) When factoring in indirect costs (special education, mental health care, juvenile delinquency, lost productivity, and adult criminality), the figure rises to more than $103 billion annually.[18]
  • Approximately 2,900 criminal incidents of pornography with juvenile involvement were known to state and local police in 2000.[19]
     
  • American Indian/Alaska Native children known to child protective services from 1995 to 1999 were more likely to be victims of neglect and less likely to be victims of physical or sexual abuse than white children.[20]

[1] David Finkelhor et al, "Violence, Abuse, and Crime Exposure in a National Sample of Children and Youth," Pediatrics 124, no. 5 (2009): 3.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Child Maltreatment, 2007, (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, 2009), 25, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm07/cm07.pdf.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 29.

[6] Ibid., 27.

[7] David Finkelhor et al, "Violence, Abuse, and Crime Exposure in a National Sample of Children and Youth," 3.

[8]  Child Maltreatment, 2007, 23.

[9] Ibid., 55-56.

[10] Ibid., 25-26.

[11] Ibid., 25.

[12] David Finkelhor, "Violence, Abuse, and Crime Exposure in a National Sample of Children and Youth," 4.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Data extrapolated from FBI,"Crime in the United States, 2008: Expanded Homicide Data, Table 12," (Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2009), http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_12.html (accessed September 17, 2009) and from FBI "Crime in the United States, 2008: Expanded Homicide Data, Table 2," (Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2009),  http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_02.html (accessed September 17, 2009).

[16] R. Karl Hanson and Monique T. Bussiere, "Predicting Relapse: A Meta-Analysis of Sexual Offender Recidivism Studies," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 66, no. 2 (1998): 9, http://home.wanadoo.nl/ipce/library_two/han/hanson_98_text.pdf (accessed September 23, 2009).

[17] Carol Coohey, "Battered Mothers Who Physically Abuse Their Children," Journal of Interpersonal Violence 19, no. 8 (August 2004): 943-52.

[18] Ching-Tung Wang and John Holton, "Total Estimated Cost of Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States," (Washington, DC: Prevent Child Abuse America, 2007), 4, 5, http://www.preventchildabuse.org/about_us/media_releases/pcaa_pew_economic_impact_study_final.pdf (accessed September 17, 2009).

[19] David Finkelhor and Richard Ormrod, "Child Pornography: Patterns from NIBRS," (Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2004), 2, http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/204911.pdf (accessed September 17, 2009).

[20] Kathleen A. Earle and Amanda Cross, "Child Abuse and Neglect among American Indian/Alaska Native Children: An Analysis of Existing Data," (Seattle: Casey Family Programs and the National Indian Child Welfare Association, 2001), 54, http://www.nicwa.org/research/04.Child%20Abuse01.Rpt.pdf (accessed September 17, 2009).
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