Most People Don’t Report Child Abuse, Poll Finds

Although a vast majority of Americans believe that child abuse is a serious problem, most people who witnessed abuse did nothing about it, according to a national survey released in Los Angeles.

Commissioned by Children’s Institute International, the telephone survey of 981 adults found that 25% of those polled had witnessed what they believed to be child abuse, but only one-third of those reported the abuse to authorities. The study also found that 53% of those who knew of sexual abuse reported the incident to authorities.

The survey suggests a disturbing gap between what people know they should do and what they actually do, said Mary M. Emmons, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles-based institute, a nonprofit child abuse prevention and treatment organization.

Poll respondents were not asked why they did not report the abuse they witnessed. But experts at last week’s national forum on children in crisis suggested several reasons.

One is a pervasive belief that “everything having to do with families is a private matter,” said James Garbarino, a professor of human development at Cornell University. People may also lack confidence in the authorities responsible for handling child abuse cases, he added.

More than half of respondents said they believe “children sometimes need a good, hard spanking.”

The survey, conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%.