NEW YORK — Amid the furor over the Penn State sexual-abuse scandal, it’s an easily overshadowed fact: The U.S. has made huge strides over the past 20 years in reducing child sexual abuse.
Of the two most authoritative national reports, one shows incidents of child sexual abuse down more than 55 percent since 1992, and the other documents a 38 percent drop between 1993 and 2006.
There are many reasons: more vigorous efforts by police and prosecutors, growing public awareness, effective treatment of abusers, better screening of people who deal regularly with children.
While heartened by the news, child-protection advocates know that tens of thousands of children continue to be sexually abused each year, often with long-lasting emotional scars. But some advocates suggest the progress should be highlighted more than it has been, and they hope the Penn State scandal will serve as a catalyst for new initiatives.
Chris Newlin, executive director of the National Children’s Advocacy Center in Huntsville, Ala., said most Americans have no idea that abuse rates have declined so markedly — in part because the message they hear is one of a worsening crisis.
“We should change our messaging,” he said. “We should be saying, ‘We have meaningful programs that are making a difference in reducing child abuse, and now is the time to continue — if not increase — your support of these efforts.’ “
Robert Edelman, who has worked with many abused children as a mental-health counselor for the Village Counseling Center in Gainesville, Fla., says much more needs to be done to persuade child victims to report the abuse they suffered.
“Many child victims and their parents that I treat do not believe that anything will happen and do not move forward legally due to their level of fear, shame and guilt,” he said.
Indeed, reluctance to report sexual abuse is one of several factors that complicate the task of quantifying it. Additionally, the national surveys must cope with reporting procedures and definitions of child sexual abuse that vary from state to state.
Nonetheless, experts in the field say the available data from law enforcement and child-protection agencies, corroborated by other rigorous surveys, leaves no doubt in their minds that there’s been a substantial decrease in child sexual abuse over the past two decades.
One of the key barometers is an annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services known as NCANDS (National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System). The latest report, based on input from state child-protection agencies, tallies the number of cases of child sexual abuse at 65,964 in 2009 — down more than 55 percent from the peak of about 150,000 in 1992.
Using the NCANDS data, the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center says the rate of sexual abuse per 1,000 children has dropped from 1.9 in 1995 to 0.89 in 2009.
Another authoritative gauge, issued in 2010, is the latest installment of the National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, a congressionally mandated study that has been conducted periodically by the HHS. It estimated that the number of sexually abused children decreased from 217,700 in 1993 to 135,300 in 2006 — a 38 percent drop.
The incidence study’s numbers are larger than NCANDS because it surveys not only child-protection services but also a wider range of teachers, police officers, health care professionals and day care workers.
State by state, abuse figures generally mirror these national trends. In Pennsylvania, for example, the number of substantiated sexual-abuse reports handled by the Office of Children, Youth and Families dropped from 2,501 in 2000 to 1,963 in 2010.
Sociologist David Finkelhor, director of the UNH Crimes Against Children Research Center, is convinced that the national numbers are valid but says many people in child-protection services remain skeptical.
“They’ve not seen a decline in their caseloads,” he said, suggesting that agencies and practitioners with good reputations for coping with abuse are going to be sought after and kept busy even if the nationwide numbers are dropping.
Finkelhor also suggested that some advocates might be wary of trumpeting successes out of concern that the cause of combating abuse might seem less urgent. That’s unlikely in regard to child sexual abuse, he said. “There are still so many cases, and it’s such an intrinsically horrifying and alarming problem.”
