Doing the Math of Child Abuse & Neglect: The Road Ahead

How Good is the Math on Child Abuse & Neglect?
Paul Conley
02/10/2007

With so much good data from U.S government agencies and foundation-sponsored research, it nonetheless appears to us as child advocacy journalists that no one has ever fully calculated the economic cost of unconscionable damage to innocent children from abuse and neglect, miserably managed foster care programs, and failed child welfare systems.

Even so, the data we have speaks powerfully to the issues at hand. In 2003 there were:

*2.9 million reports of child abuse and neglect
*900,000 children confirmed victims of abuse and neglect
-60% experienced neglect
-19% experience physical abuse
-10% experienced sexual abuse
-5% experienced emotional maltreatment.

THE COST OF CHILD ABUSE & NEGLECT is estimated at $258 MILLION A DAY, or $94 billion A YEAR, according to PREVENT CHILD ABUSE AMERICA 2001. And the social cost, looking forward, may be so large as to be inestimable.

We are committed at Child Advocacy to track every improvement in data gathering and reporting, and to making it easy to read, absorb, and pass on to others. At the same time, we want to make the numbers "come alive" as a call to action. So we will pursue ways to capture the "multiplier effect" - How much does it really cost when we lose a child in the battle against abuse and neglect; and, how much does the economy and society really gain when an endangered child is saved?

Your comments and contributions mean a lot here. Let's have a conversation which, on its own, becomes a call to action.
—Hershel Sarbin