National Child Abuse Statistics

Child abuse is one of the worst crimes in the world today and the national child abuse statistics are abysmal. There are 3 million reports of child abuse every year, with many of these resulting in deaths. The really sad part is that it is suspected there are actually 3 times more abuse and neglect cases that go unreported.

When you look more closely at the figures, you can see that it is unthinkable that so many children are mistreated and neglected, especially in the United States. According to the national child abuse statistics as of 2006, there was an estimated 3. 6 million cases reported. Of that number, 6 million involved children.

What does this say about the way children are treated in United States? Even a fraction of this number would be an atrocity. It shows, without a doubt, that many parents do not do what they should when it comes to caring for and protecting their children. In fact, many of those parents are the ones hurting their own children. This is simply unacceptable.

Every year the national child abuse statistics climb ever higher. Judging from the validated figures of 2006, there is not enough being done to slow this problem down. President Bush made April National Child Abuse Prevention Month. During this month, there are many programs, speeches and rallies to make people aware of how serious this problem is. There is also information available regarding assistance to victims and their families.

This doesn't seem to be helping stop the problem. The laws seem to be messed up on one end or the other. Some agencies are too quick to jump the gun and end up taking children away from parents who didn't do anything to harm them. Other agencies seem to just look the other way or are too slow to act, resulting in further harm, or even death, to the children.

In order to get the national child abuse statistics to go down instead of up, there needs to be new laws or rules in effect. These guidelines need to be followed strictly, rather than haphazardly. It is true that most public agencies are overworked with too few people. However, this should not be an excuse for not doing a proper job. If the budget needs to be raised so that these agencies can hire more people, then it needs to happen. Surely, the welfare of our country's children should be at least as high a priority as finding more oil.