A Critical Look At The Child Welfare System
Child
Abuse Reporting: Screening of Reports
PART I - SCREENING OF
REPORTS
OVERVIEW
According to the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, a major obstacle preventing a direct count of the number of children reported and substantiated for maltreatment is the wide variation among data collection procedures among the states.
While all states were asked to provide the number of children reported for maltreatment for the NCPCA 1994 Annual Fifty State Survey, 12 states among those responding were unable to do so.
Thirty six states count only reports of child abuse and neglect that are actually investigated, while eight other states count all calls to their hotlines, including calls for help, for services and other informational requests.
States also vary in the number of calls they exclude from the formal investigation process, with 17 states screening out, on average, 47 percent of the calls they receive.
There is also wide variation among the states in the percentage of reports screened out, with some states screening out as little as 15 percent of calls, to others screening out as many as 80 percent of them.
Forty states could only provide duplicate numbers of children reported for maltreatment. This means that if a child is reported for child abuse and neglect more than once in a year, the child would be counted more than once in the total number of children reported.[1]
A CLOSER LOOK AT REPORTING TRENDS
The best estimate of the actual percentage of calls screened out by the state hotlines nationally is in the range of one third to approximately one half.
The state of Massachusetts, for example, has screened out about one third of the calls made to its hotlines since at least 1991.[2]
The state of Washington screens out approximately 30 percent of the hotlines calls it receives, according to a 1996 performance audit.[3]
In 1994, the New York State hot line received 486,000 calls. Of these, an estimated 100,000 were follow-up calls to ongoing cases, and 85,000 of these calls calls were determined to be pranks that had to be treated as valid until proved otherwise.
Of these calls, about 26 percent of them, less than 129,000 reports, were passed on for investigation.[4]
As of 1997, of the 355,579 calls made to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services hotlines, only 19.2 percent were actually passed on for investigation.[5]
The previously referenced NCPCA 1994 Annual Survey indicates over one third of the states screen out, on average, 47 percent of them.
This would reduce the actual number of reports involving claims of child neglect, abuse and maltreatment to a low of 1.5 million to a maximum of approximately two million annual reports.
That one third of all reports are screened out nationally is suggested by a 1995 Bulletin by the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government: "Nearly two million cases of suspected abuse and neglect are reported to governmental authorities by mandated and non-mandated reporters each year."[6]
Of the 3.1 million annual reports, only about one half are passed on for investigation.
Forty-eight States reported that about 1,675,000 investigations of alleged abuse or neglect were conducted in 1995, a figure representing roughly half of the total number of reports.
Of these investigations, only about 36 percent resulted in a disposition of either substantiated or indicated child maltreatment of any variety.[7]
In the state of Georgia, during calendar year 1993, nearly 29 percent, or 21,182 of the 73,701 calls made to the hotlines were screened out before any investigation took place.
Of the remainder, 33 percent were determined to be unfounded after investigation, another 33 percent were closed as unconfirmed.
Approximately 23 percent of all reports were determined to be founded. Among this 23 percent of founded dispostions, 46 percent were for various varieties of neglect and other maltreatment, another 6 percent were for emotional abuse.[8]
State of Georgia: Report Dispositions by
Primary Category, 1993 Just as there are many variations between states, there are wide variations
in how reports are handled from one county to another.
In California, 32 percent of all reports are screened out statewide. But
the percentage of reports screened out varies substantially among the
counties.
In 1994, for example, Los Angeles County screened out about 19 percent of
the reports its hotline received, compared to 55 percent in Contra Costa
County.
According to the Office of the Legislative Analyst: "Some of the variation
among counties may be due to a lack of specificity in the state guideline,
thereby allowing counties to adopt different screening policies."[9]
Variations in screening percentages among
selected California counties. The flood of reports pouring into the hotlines has, it seems, created an
unanticipated method of screening, one that is entirely random.
In California, for example, the Orange County Grand Jury reported that one
out of four callers to the county Child Abuse Registry never got through.
11,591 of the 46,313 callers to the county Child Abuse Registry in an
11-month period in 1993 never got through, instead hanging up after lengthy
periods of time spent on hold or after getting constant busy signals.
One grand juror noted that it is impossible to know what prompted the calls
that were unanswered, but that the threat of missing a true emergency call is
genuine.[10]
The flood of inappropriate reports into the New York registry is having a
similar impact, with 10 percent of its calls lost to hang-ups.
Says Lori Beer, adult services coordinator with the Saratoga Center for the
Family, a private, non-profit organization that provides services for abused
or neglected children and their families: "I make my hot line calls at 11
o'clock at night. I'll only wait 20 minutes."
According to agency director Kristine Hoagland, her staff sometimes has to
wait an hour to get through to the hot line.
"We don't like to say calls are 'lost,'" said Terrance McGrath, a spokesman
for state Social Services. "We do know that about 10 percent of the calls hang
up before they get through, over the course of a year or a day. We assume that
most of them will call back later."[11]
In Prince William County, Virginia, callers to the reporting hotlines are
waiting 30 minutes to get through to an operator.[12]
Why do states screen out so many of these reports? What is the criteria
used in determining which calls to accept for investigation?
Last Updated February 17, 1998. 
Source: Georgia Office of Planning and Budget
Department of Audits
Source: Legislative Analyst's Office, Child
Abuse and Neglect in California, January 1996
RANDOM SCREENING AS A CONSEQUENCE OF
OVERREPORTING
Copyright © 1997 Rick
Thoma
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