Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comStudy: Incidents declined by 26 percent from 1993 to 2006
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I will be the cynic and ask who is cooking the numbers. As much as I would love to believe this, I have a hard time believing it.
THAT BASICALLY SAYS IT ALL. WE SHOULD KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK FOR THE KIDS' SAKE. Visit the darkest corners of human mind and psyche, that's where child abuse resides... Death to all child abusers.
Educating the children in speaking up about abuse and being involved with their lives plays a vital role as well.
..."children whose single parent had a live-in partner faced an abuse rate 10 times that of a child living with two parents.".... That was not a surprise, that half of "incidents" are not followed up on, not a surprise. Down 26% since 1993 - that was a surprise! Can only wish that is true, still plenty of work to do. Last I heard (SoCal), social workers were still dealing with doubled caseloads.
With all of the movies and TV dramas highlighting child abuse, how can the rate be dropping?
"children whose single parent had a live-in partner faced an abuse rate 10 times that of a child living with two parents."
This is saying that a child is safer with the biological father living in the house.
Eh, daddy with a whack-job new wife/girlfriend is no treasure either. That woman is not doing the sexual abuse one might fear from a step-dad, she is just beating, berating, &/or withholding food. (As told to me personally by a number of kids, and I'm not even a shrink, just a good listener.)
Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child.
It's hard to believe that child abuse has dropped sharply, I have every reason to believe that a lot of these parents are becoming clever and keeping their abused children shut.
Boy the great science of "statistics." Statistics also says that half of all medical students graduate in the lower 50% of their class. It also states that 99.9% of calls to fire departments were related to fires.
Other stats: 99.999 % of persons attending church believe in God, 100% of all Federal Income tax comes from workers....need I go on?
Of course children are safer usually when both parents are around. That's why i keep stating that those single moms and dads who have children younger than 12 years old should not have thier boyfriend or girlfriend live with them. the risk is just too high!
what this doesn't say is ; you harm or discipline your kids, you face jail time and deal with Socialist Services..what this doesn't say is ; when your Children run amok, they either face Cops reality show or die in prison, or get killed/ tasered by policemen...what are these statistics, can they be honest with us ??...
If this is true, I am beyond words. I so want to believe the numbers are not cooked to justify more funds. We live in a world where people will do this. I almost wish they would announce upward trends only so people would keep supporting the effort. I will give thanks and praise to God if this is true. And, those who work to reduce abuse should party like rock stars. what an accomplishment!!
My sons were defrauded of their rights and I assume they are cooking these numbers as well. Under-trained and falsifying documents is rampant. The State of New Hampshire is under investigation for what they did to my family. I gained the suport of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and 3 Congressmen. I received documents today full of lies from CPS Washington. They react by forcing my attorneys to abandon me stating I am a violent African American male, fraud and conspiracy. Quite the contrary, I am a respected Boat Builder. I am working to get all of them indicted.
estimating population prevalence from a sample is difficult- especially in an area such as child abuse....the numbers had fluctuated wildly upward from NIS2 to NIS3 and then drastically downward from NIS3 to NIS4-- big red flag
No, cmorrow, you need not. But not all statistics are lies or tautologies. Some do actually indicate trends or measure important demographics. The statistics cited in this article appear real, but their meaning is hard to fathom. Is better law enforcement causing a change in behavior? Possibly. It is also possible that perpetrators are becoming more clever in avoiding detection, choosing their victims with greater care. From the article it is hard to tell.
But a drop in reports of child abuse, particularly in this time of hypervigilance, is good news.
cmorrow-1516251
One difference here is that your stats are totaly made up. If you want to use stats to make a point at least do some research and come up with some believable numbers.
You beat me to it, Kshark...I just hope it's true...
Why don't you beat "this" and not be such a sarcastic party-pooper. This is good news and the awareness of this issue is light years ahead of where it used to be...
Wow Shift Lock...lighten up! Being of sound mind, I would certainly question the numbers in this study and not necessarily believe every aspect of what I read. While it would be "good news" if the numbers reflected reality, but one has to consider that abusers are more adept at concealing their abusive ways and many who are abused don't report because of self-blame and shame.
I know of two children in my own neighbourhood who are emotionally and physically abused by their alcoholic, drug-addicted parent. After many attempts by myself and neighbours to have child protective services and the police involved (which they have been), the children remain in this home. Apparently, foster parents are 'difficult' to come by and the 'best interest of the child' is to supposedly remain with the biological parent. From this experience alone, common sense would indicate that perhaps this study is not exploring the entire picture of abuse if it only indicates 'new reports' and does not consider resolution of current cases!
Until then, I have to wonder if the situation is that much better.
Only two children? If you want to rely on anecdotal evidence, consider that the rest of the children in your neighborhood with two live-in biological parents are safer than those raised by single moms hosting Mr. FlyByNight. No mention is made that the majority of child abuse is inflicted by mothers.
My mother used a wooden spoon (or the closest kitchen utensil she could grab minus the dough roller) to administer corporal punishment. I always thought it was unfair until I found out my buddy's mother used a tree branch or a shovel.
Mr. Blokeworth:
I would speculate that, from several of your previous posts I've read, you have a serious hate-on for females! I would also speculate (from previous posts) that your wife ditched you for another man, took the kids too, and you got a truly raw deal in the court system. I sincerely hope that one day, you get over your anger and realize that you cannot paint all men or women with the same brush.
I know single parents, both male and female, who are excellent parents to their children and I know parents of both sexes who entertain Mr. or Mrs. "FlyByNight" to the detriment of their children. However, I know in your mind, only females should be considered as promiscuous!
You say the majority of child abuse is inflicted by mothers, but from what I understand, sexual abuse is generally perpetrated by males. Perhaps you could supply a source for the rest of us Newsvine readers as to where you obtained such information. Or is that just your personal view of women?
I'm a happily married father with two children. I speak out for all of the wanting fathers I know that have been stripped of their paternal rights by angry spouses. The loss of a father was once considered to be a major tragedy in life. Today, voluntary father disposal is almost, well, an accomplishment.
No doubt. My posts irk single moms that have ditched their husbands. Instead, I write for the ditched fathers that don't have an entire self-help industry of shelves of "Fix your man, not yourself" books.
Why are you expecting me to provide you with sources of information when you don't provide any in your counter responses?
RACHEL1-933952--
I know many times over numbers are cooked for a better "showing." Number cooking was exposed by a journalist a few years back, in my home city, showing the Mayor and the BCPD cooked crime numbers and stats to have a better showing for the Mayor in his bid to be Gov.
-------------------------------
Shift Lock--
Why don't you actually stop being gullible, and live in reality.
Ash-1440301--
So you wiped your bum with those numbers after you yanked them from there.
Yeah that is really lovely of you, you speak your truth about women basically insulting the hell out of us then turn around and say oh we still love our women folk. Um yeah love them purely for one reason only.
What a guy, really you are such a keeper. *rolling my eyes*
Ash-1440301--
Too bad for you not including that I Rolled my eyes when you quoted me. Oh well everyone else can read it. Pity sarcasm eludes you, but not surprising.
Not a problem egotistical, lying men really are not my type.
YEAH, me too. Seems like a interesting* posture since the states' DCFS are PERPETUALLY looking for placement possibilities & foster parents.
Ba-Lo-Ney! All these folks have done is rearrange the well-known deck chairs. By changing the parameters, they're hoping to make things look better. In a bad economy, child abuse and spouse abuse is always going to increase, not decrease. These creeps didn't sudden "get religion." Gimme a break!
Did you read the dates of the study? They were 1993 to 2006. That was a period of unprecedented economic boom.
Yep, and now that everyone is poor they'll be more inclined to beat their kids.
Finally some good news? I'm amazed, but because it's MSNBC I have trouble believing it.
This report once again shows how the American people are being duped... These statistics only reveal the fact that the Fed's consider appropriate chastisement of a child "child abuse." Really what is being said is that the Fed's have successfully taken the rights of parents to give their children a spanking when they need one. But, the cops can abuse our children and get away with it as some stupid Americans are still calling cops hero's.
Absurd report.... And people are applauding?
the decline is the same as crime decline in mid 90s,, these same kids are now parents. decline is linked to legalized abortion. this has nothing to do with programs or crackdowns, just less kids born into unwanted situations in 70's. get over it. if you kill babies before they are criminals/parents, crime goes down. no other explanation. do some research before commenting.
e - interesting theory.
That seems to be a "no brainer." Abortions up, births down, child abuse down.
I remember when you went to hospitals and walked to the nursery and the cribs were full. Now you go and your lucky if you see three or four at a time--even in the "specialty hospitals."
You don't need to abuse your children anymore. If you have one do like Casey Anthony--kill the kid before they can report you and make yourself an instant television celeb!
Oh please! It is not that there is less abuse, its that less abuse is being reported!
How could you possibly know the answer to this?
Ian Blokesworth--
Because it is not uncommon for Politicians to cook numbers. The former mayor of my city was exposed for doing it with crime rates so it would look like he was good for the Gov seat. The school systems do it to milk more money.
Its 2010, interesting that the trend ends four years ago, it may be that the record unemployment, wage depression, housing crises, the latest trend is that family environments are more violent...
Good point!
How is it that a drop in the abuse of children would be dramatic?
Just who would be effected dramatically, (Adversely, negatively, worse of then before), by this drop?
It's amazing these so called journalist have jobs.
Don't believe it. Child sexually abuse always has been and always will be the most under reported abuse due to one main thing-fear-from whatever source the fear may come. We already don't have any near accurate results on the number of children being sexually abused each day in this country(or the world). Go to our prisons and ask them if they've been sexually abused; you're likely to get better and more accurate results. We should be working on ways to help the young people who are abused so they won't end up in our prisons or on drugs. We're not doing enough.
I oh so don't believe the numbers. I think the "apparent decline" is actually the ability of offenders to hide more as well as child sex trafficking outside the US. What explains the numbers of children being kidnapped, abused, raped and murdered in the last couple of years. The news has become overbearingly difficult to watch. Look at the the high numbers of children kidnapped and murdered in Florida and California. Caylee Anthony and Haleigh Cummings just name only 2. Have we been in the dark about the actual numbers of child abuse?
Why did you believe the "numbers" when they showed an increase? Do you want to believe that the average family is just a torture chamber for children?
I would hope that the numbers are down. I'm a CASA and work with those kids and I know that we have a lot of them.
In a related story, there has been a dramatic decline in Catholic Priests..
You forgot also the decline in:
Pentocostal ministers (remember "brother tony?"), p.e. coaches, doctors, lawyers, judges, boy scout troop leaders, child psychiatrists, teachers, police officers, juvenile officers.....
By the way Josh how are your studies coming along in the seminary? Did you get to the subject of pedophilia yet? Loved reading your paper on "transsubstantiation"
cmorrow:
touche! lmao!
cmorrow- I think the subject to which you refer is so well covered and expertly documented in the Christian community of the faithful, that any input I might add would be merely superfluous. Oh, and transubstantiation is pure and unadulterated bull@!$%#, believed only by the weak-minded and credulous. How's that, smart ass?
There is a reason why they released it like they did. DO not want peolple looking at it to hard. Many states have what is called "Alternative response" A child abuse report is taken but family given option of traditional method (Child Protection) or ALternative Response (AR). With AR, no determination of abuse/neglect, everything is voluntary; everybody happy. Child abuse rate drops. And we stick in our thumb and say what a good boy am I. Of course Law enforcement can still respond but this is a crime (5th degree assault, etc,) not Child Abuse.
double checked something after reading severalother comments. Not only sexual abuse (not to be done w/AR) but also Physical and Emotional abuse. Here is where the big drop is. But then it also easy to look at the child's behavior's and call emotional disturbance and not look beyond. Can we say sexual abuse boys and girls.
I hate to be the cynic about a story like this but the reality is that most abuse goes unreported and is a dark dirty secret of most families or individuals. To believe that stats like this could be a real sample of America or the world would be a contradiction of the human condition which is to conceal those things which shame us whether victim or perpetrator.
So, compared to thirty or sixty years ago, you think that people are reporting child abuse less?
Maybe - new laws - stricter enforcement - greater penalties - all tend to make single moms and other relatives fear the loss of the children if they report. When a boyfriend is the abuser - many mothers will leave him - but not report.
Grandparents may suspect but not report for the same reason.
So, why would they report less now than twenty years ago?
Read my post again.
They report less because the penalties are more. Twenty years ago - children were killed by their parents and received a "slap on the hand". Now they are more likely to get prison time.
Society is also more sensitive and willing to punish child abusers. The threat of prosecution is a deters child abuse. The system has worked. As the report says, children living without both parents (as in, no resident biological father) are at a risk ten times greater. There are more voluntary single mothers out there than ever before. Do these have a greater risk in calling the cops on their visiting boyfriends when the lives of their children are at risk?
Twenty years ago, prosecutions of the homosexual priests in the Catholic Church had just begun. No one wanted to admit being abused by a priest. Today, there is financial incentive to report abuse at the hands of the clergy, and the Catholic Church is paying for looking the other way all of these years. Perhaps they will learn from the Lutherans to allow marriage for priests and draw from the lot of heterosexual family men.
Why do they allways leave out the part about the rise in the crime rate of kids since their parents can no longer spank them. Now they have no respect and think they can do as they please because if you disiplin them they will call the cops.
This is allot of the problems in the world today..
They leave out the part about the most criminally-prone children are from single parent (read: mother only) households.
Ian Blokesworth--
Excuse me my own mother raised my sister and myself without my father being a father at all and I was not abused by her, I have gone on to get 3 college/university degrees, I have had a beneficial life because of her. My father could have cared less about being a father to me. My mother WAS MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER TO ME!!
You want to talk about the mother only households, BLAME THE FATHER FOR SKIPPING OUT!! I think what someone said about you was correct, you do hate women. Unbelievable.
Kudos to the police officers, child care providers, teachers, doctors and social services for this tremendous effort and fantastic result!
Unfortunately, this problem has been off-shored to other countries: There is a rampant increase in human trafficking involving not only children but adults as well, and a lot of it is in the phillipines and other asian countries.
I'm so glad american children are safer today than they have been, and a global effort to stop human slavery needs to manifest now.
PHYSICAL abuse may be down, but the 'abuse of the decade' is now mental abuse, particularly, Parental Alienation Syndrome. There are thousands of seemingly 'good' divorced parents who lie to their children and alienate them from a parent who loves them. The children becomes brainwashed and soon develop an intense dislike for the alienated parent.
Insecure, narcissistic, controlling parents can be very harmful to children. Unfortunately, it's often mothers and often the 'better' parent is the alienated parent. Very, very sad and the court systems do nothing.
The problem is with the Domestic partners and gay marrage the courts have decided that if you molest your "Family" you can not be concidered a Violent Sexual Preditor. Along with them screaming that they are being investigated because of their life style, the child protection services of this country do not want to push it until it is too late.
My father molested 4 of his grandsons and got sent to prison, he was sentanced to 12 years, we found out he had been molesting them for at least 8 years, and when he got out, they could not make him a Violant or dangerous sexual preditor.
Fortunatly 5 days after he was released, he had a heart attack and stroke and passed away. that is what I call justice.
The problem is with the Domestic partners and gay marrage the courts have decided that if you molest your "Family" you can not be concidered a Violent Sexual Preditor
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You are clueless - that is a pitiful stretch.
Studies have revealed no correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia. Please do your research. But I am sorry to hear about what happened to your family.
In no way do I believe this ! I am a case manager and in my area , it is worse. What I see is people looking the other way. Poor investigations , no reports. Kids scared to talk because either they have before and it did no good or they know that they will be sent back home and they will be PUNISHED for talking. How dare you print this and give the abuser's , molester's and rapist a sigh of relief or worse a good laugh !
My favorite example is the kids told angrily by their mother to "shut up and don't say anything" - right in front of their teacher. Now, mother dearest was being monitored by CPS, and knew she could lose custody, was an addict and alcoholic - with a new baby(probably has FAS) with a new "father" (he was the more sane one). How much do these kids have to go through, until they are just basket cases or so angry they end up killing someone? Sigh.
Btw, the one child, a girl of maybe 7 - has been though more than mentioned above, if you get my drift, and probably will be as nuts as mom.
The numbers are skewed!!! there are more and more women getting away with abuse. I have first hand knowledge of this. In Massachusetts the woman is almost always believed before the man no mater how blatant the evidence. My daughters biological mother has been found guilty of abuse more than half a dozen times by the Dept. of Social Services (been investigated more than a dozen) but never criminally charged because she is a women that can play the victim. She has 2 sons that raped my daughters a number of times a couple of years ago and they confessed to the Police but the ADA didn't press charges, instead they investigated me the one person in the house that didn't abuse them.
There are thousands of cases like this in Massachusetts every year and they never get counted in these crap reports because if they did people would know that all these programs that cost millions need to be completely overhauled and cops, district attorneys, social workers and Judges would lose their jobs.
P.S. after my daughters were raped by their half brothers and abused by their mother Massachusetts Dept. of Social Services did not see any reason to investigate and commended their mother for reporting it.
No doubt. Criminal sentencing for women is lighter for crimes across the board.
I would not believe anything the government trys to spin with their numbers and statistics. You can make numbers say anything you want.
Parents, take care of your children
This story is bull@!$%#, my grandson was abused by his stepmother, but his dad is a cop, so according to my lawyer DHS dropped the ball, and according to DHS my lawyer dropped the ball.
If you are a cop and live within a good ole boy system, you can get away with anything. My grandson was five, and we have two psychologist, and 3 doctors, and the emergency room, but it wasn't good enough, for the court system, it was swept under the rug, the judge wouldn't let the Psychologist get on the stand.
My grandson even told the doctor his cop father hurt him, none of this mattered, his dad is a cop, and can cover up tickets for the lawyers.
Mine can't be the only case out there like this.
That is just sickening, so sorry. Did you finally get him out of there? It seems like with all those reports, and no action, that a federal agency should be able to intervene/investigate. Like the FBI. Something.
No, they gave him more custody, the good ole boy system is a joke. We found out there is a law that the judge should have let the doctor on the stand, we are trying to find somebody to help.
The lawyers and the cops are all corupt down here.
What they call child abuse was called responsible parental discipline back when I grew up. Spanking and paddling were common place. Lay a finger on your child these days and CPS is notified.
That is absolutely not true. But don't leave marks or draw blood. When a little boy is bleeding, say from his wrist, and he says his dad beat him with a belt going out of the house that morning, for example - a teacher/healthcare worker is required to report it. By law. Or be charged as being complicit.
I agree with you 100% back in my school days the teacher would spank you and the principle would spank you and when you got home if my parents found out I would get spanked again.. nothing wrong with a good spanking but you should never raise a fist and hit a child. but a spanking on the butt will not hurt them.
Want to bet? When my son was in third grade, he went to school wearing the same shirt two days in a row. The school immediately called DHS and they were at our door within a few hours of school starting.
Why had he worn that shirt two days in a row? I had done laundry that night and it was his favorite shirt. We still got shaken down for a week.
If the Department of Hurtful Separation can go that insane over a misunderstanding, you better believe that if Junior even complains that Mommy and Daddy looked at them cross-eyed the state or county will be on them in a heartbeat.
Now, with the numbers of abused kids dropping, I wonder if this is actually a good thing and parents are getting a grip or if most of them have just begun leaving their kids alone for fear of prosecution. I hope it's the first option...
addiem
It is true... Or rather, often it is true.
CPS, DFS, (or whatever the local acronym's are), are federally funded organizations that often receive financial incentives to 'prove' abuse and/or prosecute.
Also, these (by admitted necessity) are run by human beings that are prone to foibles like anyone else. When it comes to an emotionally charged circumstance (and nearly any circumstance involving a child is such), individual emotional baggage inevitably squares itself and then some.
On a related note, these departments draw a certain kind of self-righteous lunatic like flies to crap; and although not every case is turned inside out into a nasty piece of self aggrandizement and vindication for the 'authorities involved', far too many do. These people are often abysmally under trained, and often ill equipped emotionally to view these circumstances with any semblance of objectivity.
I feel it is possible that more children are harmed then helped in many ways by the current campaign of 'awareness' (*cough* 'witch-hunt'), that encourages any neighbor, co-worker, relative, acquaintance, teacher, or just general busy body to 'report' what they perceive may-could-possibly-don't-take-any-chances-it's-the-children-my-gawd be abuse. In short, anyone with an agenda, sub-conscious or otherwise, can create a circumstance with one phone call that has disastrous potential to snow ball out of control and hurt children (and entire families) terribly.
This does happen. In fact, it happens alot.
Now, just to clarify... I'm not talking about what a health care worker, or teacher, or whatever professional is legally required to report. Unfortunately, many of these professionals don't understand where their legal obligation starts and stops. Not to mention that the specific language for interpreting what may be abuse in the legaleze itself is often vague or simply non-existant.
I'm certainly not saying that some--or even--many children and families aren't helped by well rounded, sincere social workers and child-protection agencies. No system is perfect of course, but the current one, along with a current social tendency toward persecution in these matters is all too often a travesty.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Could this study also be an attempt to make people believe that state social services are actually doing any good? When government wants to cut costs the budget is cut for those who do not have a loud voice. Nobody has a voice as low as children. So, department of social services are continually being cut. More cuts mean less effectiveness. Less effectiveness equals society questioning whether or not we need "department of social services." What better way to make people rally for big bucks in the legislature as proposing that department of social services is doing "a great job." Bullsh*t.
Have you noticed that the last 3 or so cases of missing/dead children come from Florida? Everyone is looking for dead kids and not looking at the agency that is suppose to protect them!
child abuse is not down around here so i wonder where do they do their so calles surveys at here in carter county people does drugs and sell out in the open and the cops dont do anythinfg about it so thats why that child abuse and neglect is actuaslly on the rise!!!!