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New_Stats t1_iyeah0n wrote

The state with the lowest rate of child abuse cases is Pennsylvania, with a rate of 174.8 cases for every 100,000 people under the age of 18 in the state. Pennsylvania has 2.62 million people under the age of 18, and less than 5,000 cases of child abuse have been reported over each of the past four years, with the number of victims decreasing 5.2% in 2020.

New Jersey was a close second, with a low rate of 188.9 child abuse cases per 100,000 children in the state. New Jersey was also found to have the biggest decrease in the number of child abuse cases, with a 55.8% reduction in the number of victims between 2019 and 2020.

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They don't say why, which is concerning. Did child abuse go down or did we stop reporting it as much? If it's the former then that's great. If it's the later then we have a big fucking problem that needs to be fixed ASAP

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whskid2005 t1_iyedrmd wrote

My guess would be kids weren’t in school. Schools have a lot of mandatory reporters.

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ardent_wolf t1_iyee2fc wrote

The key word is “cases.” We have less child abuse cases.

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ardent_wolf t1_iyedosg wrote

I’m tired of seeing this study constantly misrepresented. The PA sub was all over this too because it said they have the lowest, which completely ignores the terrible state of child protective services in PA.

2nd lowest rate of child abuse cases does not mean 2nd lowest rate of child abuse. It simply means only PA reports less child abuse than NJ per 100,000 people. It’s impossible to definitively show which states actually abuse children more, and reported cases are the best metric we have. But it does not mean what OP says it means.

Low case rate can be from lack of child abuse. It can also be if cases are difficult or cumbersome to report, if an entity is or isn’t bound by mandatory reporting laws, the existing infrastructure and agencies set up to process complaints and investigate them properly, etc.

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Teknicsrx7 t1_iyeqcir wrote

All these types of studies rely on what’s reported, it’s all very misleading when represented as more than what it is.

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ardent_wolf t1_iyeub3m wrote

The study isn’t the problem, and there are few metrics that would be useful besides reported cases. But the article doesn’t discuss any context, it simply says how many cases each state reports and then tries to sell courses to social workers in NY.

Discussion of how much child (or any other type of) abuse is happening in a given state should also include socioeconomic indicators that influence child abuse rates to help fill in the gaps from unreported crimes. The reports themselves mean little.

Say, for example, that a state introduces a massive budget increase to its child protective services dept and hires many well-paid social workers. They start spending money to advertise their reporting hotline, institute mandatory reporting across a variety of industries, and educate the populace about signs of child abuse. Their cases will increase dramatically, but that doesn’t mean their policies led to more child abuse. Hence the issue with the study as presented in this article.

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Trick-Occasion6890 t1_iydrfo8 wrote

They don't do anything when kids are being abused so probably why it's ranked this way for the study. 🥺

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classicgirl1990 t1_iyev2dl wrote

Schools are responsible for around 75% of cases reported to DCFS. 2020 was an abysmal year for children in abusive homes. Nothing to celebrate.

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PracticableSolution t1_iyeh5xh wrote

I will add to this that the New Jersey counties and the state has a fantastic CASA organization that is very on top of kids that get caught in the system and keep them out of abusive situations. I highly recommend anyone to volunteer fir the organization

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CreatrixAnima t1_iyevzqe wrote

New Jersey also has a lower population of the “beat your child into submission to the Lord” variety of religious nutbaggery.

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Pulse_fang t1_iye7gcb wrote

Most parents these days can't do anything. Hell probably look at your kid with a "we will talk about this when we get home." stare, and child services will bust a nut trying to steal your kids.

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