A study released today finds that U.S. children are routinely exposed to even more violence and abuse than has been previously recognized, with nearly half experiencing a physical assault in the study year. The study was conducted by researchers at the Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC) at the University of New Hampshire and the Department of Psychology at The University of the South.
The research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The research results are presented in the journal
Pediatrics and an Office of Justice Programs/OJJDP bulletin titled “Children’s Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey.”
The study was conducted in 2008 and involved interviews with caregivers and youth about the experiences of a nationally representative sample of 4,549 children ages 0-17. The authors include David Finkelhor, director of the CCRC and the study director, UNH professors Heather Turner and Richard Ormrod, and
Sherry Hamby, research associate professor of psychology at Sewanee.
“Children experience far more violence, abuse, and crime than do adults,” Finkelhor said. “If life were this dangerous for ordinary grown-ups, we’d never tolerate it.”
The researchers asked a national sample of U.S. children and their caregivers about a far broader range of exposures than has been done in the past.
According to the research, three out of five children were exposed to violence, abuse or a criminal victimization in the last year, including 46 percent who had been physically assaulted, 10 percent who had been maltreated by a caregiver, 6 percent who had been sexually victimized, and 10 percent who had witnessed an assault within their family.
In contrast to earlier studies, this study asked about all such exposures as well as additional ones that are rarely covered, such as dating violence and witnessing domestic violence.
“Researchers, and even providers, tend to focus on one particular form of victimization, such as parental neglect or school bullying, but our work shows that researchers have missed the fact that in many cases, we are studying the same kids and we should be doing more to identify the full burden of victimization faced by many youth,” Hamby said.
The abstract of the
Pediatrics article is
available here.
The Department of Justice bulletin about the research is available at the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Web site.
