CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT ACT
What it is: The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment
Act (CAPTA) is the principal federal legislation specifically addressing the prevention and
treatment of child abuse and neglect. Reauthorized in June 2003, CAPTA provides federal
funding to improve state child protective services (CPS) and community-based prevention
services.
How it works: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides: grants
to states to strengthen their CPS systems (in Title I); grants to support research, training,
technical assistance, program evaluation, and demonstrations (in Title I); and grants to
develop, operate, and expand community-based prevention-focused programs for families (in
Title II).
Why it's important: Children who survive abuse or neglect carry the emotional
scars for life. Being abused or neglected sharply increases the risk that children will
grow up to be arrested for a violent crime. The best available research indicates that,
based on confirmed cases of abuse or neglect in just one year, an additional 35,000 violent
criminals and more than 250 murderers will emerge as adults who would never have become
violent criminals if not for the abuse and neglect they endured as kids.
Fortunately, quality programs really work to prevent abuse and neglect. For example, one
evidence-based voluntary in-home parent coaching program, the Nurse Family Partnership
(NFP), randomly assigned at-risk pregnant women to receive in-home visits by nurses starting
before the birth of the first child and continuing until the child was age two. Rigorous
research, originally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows
that in-home parent coaching services can cut abuse and neglect among at-risk children in
half. In addition, children of mothers who received the coaching had 60% fewer arrests by
age 15 than the children of mothers who were not coached.
Overwhelming unmet need: Each year, more than 1,400 children die from abuse or neglect
in the United States. Forty percent of these children are less than one year old. Each
year, an estimated 2.7 million children are abused or neglected, including 900,000 cases
that are actually investigated and verified by an overburdened child protection system.
Services are so underfunded that only half of all abuse and neglect reports can even be
investigated, and of the cases that are confirmed, only about half the children receive any
help.
Fiscally responsible: Prevent Child Abuse America estimates that child abuse
and neglect cost Americans $94 billion a year. Researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of
Minneapolis concluded that NFP produced an average of five dollars in savings for every
dollar invested and produced more than $28,000 in net savings for every high-risk family
enrolled in the program. A Washington State analysis also produced similar results.
Funding Level: In Fiscal Year 2007, CAPTA received $95 million, far less than
the $200 million authorized by Congress. For FY08, the Administration is recommending a
funding level of $105 million, with the additional $10 million designated for nurse home
visiting programs. Fight Crime: Invest in Kids recommends that Congress increase funding
for CAPTA to the authorized level of $200 million.
For more information, please contact Miriam Rollin at (202) 776-0027
ext. 143 or miriam@fightcrime.org
1212 New York Ave. NW, Suite 300