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| << Chapter 3 | Chapter 5 >> |
Child fatalities are the most tragic consequence of maltreatment. Collecting accurate data regarding fatalities attributed to child abuse and neglect is challenging and requires coordination among many agencies, including child protective services, law enforcement, the medical examiner's office, and the judicial system. A determination that there has been a homicide and that the cause was child maltreatment can take some time to finalize.
Child protective services agencies (CPS) are the most critical source of data concerning abuse and neglect fatalities. However, not all fatalities come to the attention of CPS and NCANDS recommends to States that they work with their health departments, vital statistics departments, medical examiner's offices, and fatality review teams to obtain more comprehensive information about child maltreatment deaths. During Federal fiscal year (FFY) 2007:
In this chapter, national estimates of the number and rate of child maltreatment deaths per 100,000 children are provided. The characteristics of these fatality victims also are discussed.
Forty-eight States reported a total of 1,586 fatalities, of which 1,280 were reported in case-level data files and 306 were reported as aggregated data. Forty-three States were able to report case-level data on fatalities.1
Based on these data, an estimated 1,760 children nationally (compared to 1,530 children for FFY 2006) died from abuse or neglect.2 The rate per 100,000 children was 2.35 deaths for FFY 2007 compared to a rate of 2.05 for FFY 2006. With the exception of FFY 2005, the number and rate of fatalities has been increasing over the past 5 years. The national estimate is influenced by which States report data. For FFY 2007, several States reported increased fatalities when compared to FFY 2006, thus resulting in a higher national estimate. To some degree, this can be attributed to improved data collection and reporting, but all the causes of the increase are not specifically identifiable.
More than 40 percent (42.2%) of all fatalities were children younger than 1 year, 16.5 percent were children age 1 year, 10.7 percent were children age 2 years, and 6.3 percent were children age 3 years. Therefore, 75.7 percent were younger than 4 years old. Nearly 13 percent (12.9%) were between the ages of 4 and 7 years, thus indicating that the majority of children who die from child abuse or neglect are young children (figure 4-1).
The examination of age and sex of child fatalities reveals that the very young are more vulnerable to death that is attributable to child abuse or neglect. Infant boys (younger than 1 year) had a fatality rate of 18.85 per 100,000 boys of the same age.3 Infant girls (younger than 1 year) had a fatality rate of 15.39 per 100,000 girls of the same age. In general, fatality rates for both boys and girls decreased with age (figure 4–2).
Nearly one-half (41.1%) of all fatalities were White children.4 More than one-quarter (26.1%) were African-American children, and nearly one-fifth (16.9%) were Hispanic children. Children of American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Pacific Islander, and multiple race categories collectively accounted for 4.8 percent of fatalities. More than 10 percent (11.1%) of children were of unknown race.
Nearly 70 percent (69.9%) of child fatalities were caused by one or more parents.5 More than one-quarter (27.1%) of fatalities were perpetrated by the mother acting alone.6 Child fatalities with unknown perpetrators accounted for 16.4 percent.
Slightly more than one-third of fatalities (35.2%) were caused by multiple forms of maltreatment. Neglect accounted for 34.1 percent and physical abuse for 26.4 percent (figure 4–3).7 Medical neglect accounted for 1.2 percent of fatalities.
Some children who died from maltreatment were already known to CPS agencies. Children whose families had received family preservation services in the past 5 years accounted for 11.9 percent of child fatalities. Slightly more than 2 percent (2.6%) of the child fatalities had been in foster care and were reunited with their families in the past 5 years.8
The following pages contain the tables referenced in Chapter 4. Unless otherwise explained, a blank indicates that the State did not submit usable data. Specific information about State submissions can be found in appendix D. Additional information regarding methodologies that were used to create the tables are provided below.
Table 4-1
Table 4-2
Table 4-3
Table 4-4
The category multiple race includes a combination of two or more race categories.
Table 4-5
Table 4-6
The category multiple maltreatment types includes a combination of any two or more types of maltreatment.
Table 4-7
Footnotes
1 Supporting data are provided in table 4–1, which is located at the end of this chapter. The 1,280 case-level fatalities
were reported in the Child Files and the 306 fatalities were reported in the SDC or Agency Files. back
2 See table 4–2. An FFY 2007 national estimate of 1,760 fatalities was derived by multiplying the national weighted rate
of fatalities (2.35 per 100,000) by the national child population (74,904,677) and dividing by 100,000. The estimate was
then rounded to the nearest 10. back
3 See table 4–3. back
4 See table 4–4. back
5 Includes the following categories: mother, father, mother and father, "mother with other," and " father with other." back
6 See table 4–5. back
7 See table 4–6. back
8 See table 4-7. back
| << Chapter 3 | Chapter 5 >> |
