INCIDENCE OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

INCIDENCE OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
Incidence studies vary in their ability to capture the number of abuse cases that come
to the attention of professionals. There are three primary, ongoing attempts to
determine the incidence rate of child sexual abuse. The most comprehensive is the
National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, done every several years, and
most recently conducted in 1993 (Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996). It surveys not only
all child protective services agencies, but also other community professionals who
serve children and families. Two other important ongoing incidence studies use data only from state child protective services agencies. The Annual Fifty State Survey is
collected by the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse. The other survey is
collected by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS).
Another potential source of child sexual abuse incidence is national crime data
reported by the Bureau of Justice. The two primary surveys, the National Crime
Victimization Survey and the Uniform Crime Report, however, do not uniformly
distinguish between child and adult cases of sexual assault and rape. The Bureau of
Crime Statistics, for example, only reports rape cases by age for certain states (Langan
& Harlow, 1994). The National Crime Victimization Survey only gathers information
for respondents ages 12 and older. Their data on child sexual abuse are therefore
limited. A final unofficial survey of incidence rates done by the Gallup Poll in 1995
is also available. All studies are reviewed in the following sections.