Westat to estimate the number of children seen by nonprofessionals, let alone their nonreporting rate. Westat found that professionals failed to report many of the children they saw who had signs of child abuse and neglect. It found that in 1986, 56 percent of apparently abused or neglected children, or about 500,000 children, were not reported to the authorities. This figure, however, seems more alarming than it is: Basically, the more serious the case, the more likely the report. For example, the surveyed professionals reported over 85 percent of the fatal or serious physical abuse cases they saw, 72 percent of the sexual abuse cases, and 60 percent of the moderate physical abuse cases. They only reported 15 percent of the educational neglect cases they saw, 24 percent of the emotional neglect cases, and 25 percent of the moderate physical neglect cases. Unsubstantiated ReportsNationwide, between 60 and 65 percent of all reports are closed after an initial investigation determines that they are "unfounded" or "unsubstantiated" . The existence of this high unfounded rate was reconfirmed by the annual Fifty State Survey of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (NCPCA), which found that in 1993 only about 34 percent of the reports received by child protective agencies were substantiated. Between 1989 and 1993, as the number of reports received by the city's child welfare agency increased by over 30 percent, the percent of substantiated reports fell by about 47 percent. The determination that a report is unfounded can only be made after an unavoidable traumatic investigation that is of parental and family privacy. To determine whether a particular child is in danger, caseworkers must look into the most intimate personal and family matters. Often it is necessary to question friends, relatives, and neighbors, as well as schoolteachers, day-care personnel, doctors, clergy, and others who know the family.Laws against child abus...
