Overview
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Territories have child abuse and neglect reporting laws that mandate certain professionals and institutions refer suspected maltreatment to a child protective services (CPS) agency. Each state has its own definitions of child abuse and neglect that are based on standards set by federal law. Federal legislation provides a foundation for states by identifying a set of acts or behaviors that define child abuse and neglect. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), (P.L. 100–294), as amended by the CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111–320), retained the existing definition of child abuse and neglect as, at a minimum:
The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (P.L. 114–22) added the requirement to include sex trafficking victims in the definition of child abuse and neglect. The following pages provide a summary of key information from this report. The information is provided in a question-and-answer format as the Children’s Bureau is anticipating the most common questions for each chapter of the report. Please refer to the individual chapters for detailed information about each topic and the relevant data. Definitions of terms also are provided in Appendix B, Glossary.
What is the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS)?
NCANDS is a federally sponsored effort that collects and analyzes annual data on child abuse and neglect. The 1988 CAPTA amendments directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish a national data collection and analysis program. The data is collected and analyzed by the Children’s Bureau in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The data is submitted voluntarily by the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The first report from NCANDS was based on data for 1990. This report for federal fiscal year (FFY) 2023 is the 34th issuance of this annual publication.
How are the data used?
NCANDS data is used for the Child Maltreatment report series. In addition, the data is a critical source of information for many publications, reports, and activities of the federal government and other groups. For example, NCANDS data is used in the annual publication, Child Welfare Outcomes: Report to Congress. More information about these reports and programs are available on the Children’s Bureau website at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb.
What data is collected?
Once an allegation (called a referral) of abuse or neglect is received by a CPS agency, it is either screened-in for a response by CPS or it is screened-out. A screened-in referral is called a report. CPS agencies respond to all reports. In most states, the majority of reports receive investigations, which determine if a child was maltreated or is at-risk of maltreatment and establish whether an intervention is needed. Some reports receive alternative responses, which focus primarily upon the needs of the family and do not determine if a child was maltreated or is at-risk of maltreatment.
NCANDS collects case-level data on all children who received a CPS agency response in the form of an investigation response or an alternative response. Case-level data (meaning individual child record data) includes information about the characteristics of screened-in referrals (reports) of abuse and neglect that are made to CPS agencies, the children involved, the types of maltreatment, the dispositions of the CPS responses, the risk factors of the child and their caregivers, the services that are provided, and the perpetrators. NCANDS collects agency-level aggregate statistics in a separate data submission called the Agency File.
Where are the data available?
The Child Maltreatment reports from this edition back to 1995 are available on the Children’s Bureau website at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/data-research/child-maltreatment. If you have questions or require additional information about this report, please contact the Child Welfare Information Gateway at info@childwelfare.gov or 1–800–394–3366. Restricted use files of NCANDS submissions are archived at the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) at Cornell University https://www.ndacan.acf.hhs.gov. Researchers who are interested in using these files for statistical analyses may contact NDACAN by phone at 607–255–7799 or by email at ndacan@cornell.edu. See chapter 1 for more information about NCANDS and the data collection.