This report presents national data about child abuse and neglect known to child protective services agencies in the United States during federal fiscal year 2020. Release date: January 2022.
Child Maltreatment 2020 is the latest edition of the annual Child Maltreatment report series. States provide the data for this report via the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). NCANDS was established as a voluntary, national data collection and analysis program to make available state child abuse and neglect information. Data have been collected every year since 1991 and are collected from child welfare agencies in the 50 states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.
Key findings in this report include:
■ The national rounded number of children who received a child protective services investigation response or alternative response decreased from 3,476,000 for federal fiscal year (FFY) 2019 to 3,145,000 for FFY 2020.
■ Comparing the national rounded number of victims from FFY 2019 (656,000) to the national rounded number of victims in 2020 (618,000) also shows a decrease.
■ The FFY 2020 data show three-quarters (76.1%) of victims are neglected, 16.5 percent are physically abused, 9.4 percent are sexually abused, and 0.2 percent are sex trafficked.
■ The national estimate of victims who died from abuse and neglect decreased from 1,830 for FFY 2019 to 1,750 for FFY 2020. The rate of child fatalities also decreased from 2.48 per 100,000 children in the population to 2.38 per 100,000 children in the population.1
The Child Maltreatment report series is an important resource relied upon by thousands of researchers, practitioners, and advocates throughout the world. The report is available from this website at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/data-research/child-maltreatment.