ELIMINATING VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN

Eliminating violence against children

Eliminating violence against children

Introduction

To fully understand the issue of children exposed to domestic violence, accurate prevalence data are needed. Prevalence studies of domestic violence are limited by the manner in which data are collected (Fantuzzo & Mohr, 1999). All local and state law enforcement authorities are mandated to aggregate the number of criminal incidents by offense type and report them to the FBI, but this system does not provide specific information on domestic violence. National telephone surveys to study domestic violence also contribute to inaccurate prevalence rates. This method relies solely on retrospective self-report data, which is difficult to validate. Thus, estimates of domestic violence vary widely, ranging from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former boyfriend or girlfriend per year, to 3.9 million women who are physically abused by husbands or live-in partners per year (Rae,2006). Furthermore, at present, we have no national crime report system that systematically collects data on children exposed to family violence crimes.(Earle,2001)

Law Enforcement Partnership Data

Because domestic violence is a crime as well as a public health problem, many researchers believe that law enforcement personnel are in a strategic position to enhance scientific inquiry by providing direct assessments of domestic violence incidents (Fantuzzo & Mohr, 1999). As a result, researchers are considering ways to partner with law enforcement to study children's exposure to substantiated domestic violence incidents. Police have the authority to enter people's homes and collect data pertinent to domestic violence, including the nature of the violence, the presence of children exposed, and the nature of the exposure. Therefore, law enforcement officers represent an important group of natural sentinels with whom researchers and service providers can partner to collect data on the nature of domestic violence incidents and children's exposure, as well as to link children to services.

To date, only a few studies have documented the value of partnering with law enforcement agencies to collect substantiated data on children exposed to family violence. The Spousal Abuse Replication Program (SARP) provided an important set of findings regarding a population-based examination of children's exposure to substantiated police cases of domestic violence across five cities (Fantuzzo, Boruch, Beriama, Atkins, & Marcus, 1997). This multicity study found that children were disproportionately present in households where there was domestic violence and that these children were more likely to be under 6 years old. In addition, these households were more likely to pose other risks to child development, with higher than average rates of poverty, single-female-headed households, low educational attainment of caregiver, and parental substance abuse. Furthermore, 7% of the children experienced direct physical abuse. This rate documents that children exposed to domestic violence are at increased risk for child abuse, since the national prevalence rate for physical abuse is 1.3% (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004).

Population-Based Studies

Two recent population-based studies support and extend the SARP research findings. Both investigations used law enforcement to gather prevalence data on children exposed to substantiated domestic violence ...