Neighborhoods Key to Battling Child Abuse, Panel Says

Child abuse cases in the United States have increased 50-fold in the last 20 years to nearly 3 million annually--a trend attributable to tough economic times, the prevalence of violence in American society and a breakdown in neighborhood life, a blue ribbon panel of experts said Wednesday.

To combat what it called a national tragedy, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse, established by Congress in 1988, recommended a comprehensive effort on the part of government, community leaders and residents to strengthen neighborhoods.

“Research has made it painfully clear that the rate of child maltreatment in a neighborhood is tied to the quality of life in that neighborhood,” the board said.

“Neighborhoods that are considered dangerous and frightening by residents have higher rates of maltreatment than neighborhoods that residents regard more positively, even when those neighborhoods have equivalent income levels and similar ethnic composition.”

Specifically, the board recommended that federal agencies such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development should work with city and county planners and community organizations “to develop a neighborhood child protection plan for every neighborhood in their jurisdiction.”

Such a plan should include “constructive opportunities for youth to network with each other, with positive adult role models, and to find positive roles for themselves in their community,” the report suggested.

It also recommended that business, civic and religious organizations “adopt a particular high-risk neighborhood that they make a commitment to strengthen,” including parents, grandparents and neighborhood youth in the project.

Effective prevention of child abuse occurs when there is “friendship among neighbors, watchfulness for each other’s families . . . and a sense of belonging, ownership and collective responsibility,” the report said.

“The best protection for children is intervention by concerned neighbors,” said Deanne Tilton Durfee of El Monte, Calif., the board chairwoman.

Another board member, Gary B. Melton, a psychology professor at the University of Nebraska, said that the most prevalent factor among child abuse cases is poverty.

However, he added, “poverty itself does not cause child abuse, but rather a combination of poverty and isolation, where there is no neighborly concern for children.”

Tilton Durfee, executive director of the Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, said the board found that maltreatment of children increases during difficult economic times largely because “hard times” create family tension.

“We live in a violent society and children are the easiest targets,” she said.

The report faulted law enforcement officers, psychologists and social workers, finding that “instead of emphasizing prevention of maltreatment, America’s child protection system usually steps in when damage has already been done.

Instead of easing tensions within families and bringing them closer together, the system too often exacerbates those tensions.”