NCJ Number
137415
Date Published
1989
Length
53 pages
Annotation
The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect has funded the American Association for Protecting Children since 1974 to maintain a voluntary national data system for child abuse and neglect case data. The aggregate data, last collected in 1986, included several variables including level of reporting, number of families reported for child abuse and neglect, reporting rates, duplicated and unduplicated reports, case substantiation, and sexual abuse reports.
Abstract
Several areas of concern with regard to the system have emerged: the time delays in gathering individual State data, the lack of flexibility in adding to or modifying the analyses performed, and the insufficient level of funding. Current recommendations are in place for the design of a new system for child abuse and neglect data. Some of the variables to be included are number of reports, number of children who were subject of a report, number of reports by source of report, fatalities, number and disposition of investigations, race/ethnicity, jurisdiction or custody of child, relationship of child to perpetrator, and recidivism. The desired outcomes of a design for a national reporting data system would be annual collections of State data and biannual analyses; analyses of data variation at the county level; a commitment to the continuity of data collection; established criteria for inclusion in national reporting data; and a clearly defined implementation strategy.