The number of Utah children who are abused increased for the fifth consecutive year, according to a report issued by the Division of Family Services.
The bad news is compounded by the fact that Child Protective Services is running at a $1.3 million deficit for fiscal year 1993. When the new year starts in July, they will already be operating under a $500,000 deficit, according to division director Lynn Samsel. The budget that recently passed the Legislature doesn't allow room for growth."We need to decide as a community what our commitment is to these children," Samsel said.
The information was released during a press conference at the Children's Justice Center Friday morning.
The report found that the number of child abuse victims increased by 4.1 percent, from 10,179 in 1991 to 10,595 in 1992. During the past five years, the division has seen an annual increase of about 12 percent, said Samsel.
Investigations increased by 5.6 percent. According to the report, about 42 percent of allegations are substantiated.
Sexual abuse accounts for the largest number of abuse cases, with 2,444 victims, followed closely by physical abuse with 2,310. Some children suffer more than one type of abuse. Other categories, in order of frequency, are physical neglect (1,730 victims), nonsupervision (1,583), emotional maltreatment (1,428), dependency (689), medical neglect (153) and educational neglect (124). Abandonment, failure to protect and fetal addiction each had fewer than 100 victims.
Samsel said that youths increasingly are perpetrators. About 50 percent of the abusers are younger than 20 and 30 percent are younger than 18. The majority are not related to their victims but are known to them.
"I'm seeing children who are wounded and confused," said Julie Bradshaw, director of the child protection team at Primary Children's Medical Center. She described the young people who come into the hospital for an assessment of whether they've been abused as frightened and full of guilt. Unless they receive counseling, she said, "those feelings stay with them the rest of their lives."
The good news, Bradshaw said, is that treatment works. But there are children on waiting lists to receive it.
"When children don't get treatment they need when they are little, they grow up with serious problems, have difficult time in foster homes and don't have the skills to get along in foster families," said Eric Bjorklund, president of Utah Youth Village, which contracts with the state to provide residential services. "They can't deal with the school system, they can't get and keep jobs. In the three main areas of life they don't have the skills they need to get to function."
Among the report's other findings:
- Slightly more than half of abuse and neglect victims are female. Three-fourths of sex abuse victims are female.
- Two-thirds of the substantiated cases are new to the agency, with no previous family referral.
- Almost three-fourths of abuse and neglect occurs in the home; the most common abuser is the mother. The exception is sexual abuse; while the victim usually knows the abuser, the largest category of perpetrator is "non-related."