Pennsylvania Fact Sheet

Quick two-page fact sheet on child abuse and neglect

In Home Parent Coaching Programs Protect Kids, Reduce Crime & Save Money: Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect in Pennsylvania

Child Abuse News

Too often, the victims of child abuse and neglect are later arrested and prosecuted. Though most abused or neglected children grow up to be productive adults, research shows that kids are nearly one-third more likely to be arrested for violent crimes later in life due to the abuse they endured. In 2005, 4,208 Pennsylvania children were confirmed as abused. Based on the 2005 number, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids estimates that in Pennsylvania, child abuse and neglect each year produces 168 new criminals.

The tragedy is that we can prevent most child abuse and therefore reduce future crime by providing resources to in-home parent coaching programs. The Nurse Family Partnership program has been shown to cut child abuse and neglect in half. The program provides a range of support to low-income, first-time mothers before their child is born until age two. Nurses help parents manage stress, understand newborn health and nutrition needs, identify early warning signs, make their home child-safe, teach practical steps to avoid hurting their kids, help them to become self-sufficient and more. The program also saves as much as $4 for every $1 dollar invested. Yet, due to underfunding, less than 25 percent of Pennsylvania's at-risk families are able to participate.

When kids are seriously abused and neglected, they need the protection of foster care. Research shows that leaving kids in dangerous homes where they face continuing abuse and neglect increases the risk by 27 percent that they will become violent criminals. Four out of 10 children who are seriously abused and neglected and left in their homes, but later need to be placed in foster care because of further abuse, commit violent crimes when they grow up.

Reports

All Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania reports on child abuse and neglect prevention, in-home parent coaching and foster care:

"We discovered that this poor little kid had been beaten and punched so hard it left the imprint of knuckles of a hand on his stomach...It came out at the trial that his (the abuser's) grandmother beat him. It's sad that nobody intervened to help him and he turned out to be a predator. By no means does every child who is abused grow up to be a criminal. But there is a common denominator among many offenders we see; they have been neglected or abused early in life and they act out that way. If we can prevent child abuse, we can break that cycle.”

-James C. Backstrom, Dakota County Attorney, Minnesota

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• A poor mother who had been abused or neglected as a child is 13 times more likely to abuse or neglect her children than mothers who were not abused.
• Children of mothers not in an in-home parent coaching program had more than twice as many arrests as the children of mothers who received services.