Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS–4)

In the NIS classifications, maltreatment encompasses both abuse and neglect.Abuse includes physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse. Neglect includesphysical neglect, emotional neglect, and educational neglect. Each of these categoriescomprises more specific forms of abuse or neglect. The standardized NIS definitionsdescribe the acts and omissions for each specific form. The NIS–4 applied a moredifferentiated system for classifying the specific forms of maltreatment than the earlierNIS cycles used. However, the NIS–4 definitional standards were identical to those usedin the NIS–2 and NIS–3. These standards specify the criteria for deciding whether achild’s situation “counts” as maltreatment to include in the study estimates. The criteriaspecify a number of required features, such as the child’s relationship to the perpetrator(the abuse or neglect must be within the jurisdiction of CPS, perpetrated or permitted by aparent or caretaker), the severity of the injury or harm that resulted, and the degree ofevidence for holding the alleged perpetrator(s) responsible for the maltreatment.The NIS applies two definitional standards in parallel: the Harm Standardand the Endangerment Standard. The Harm Standard has been in use since the NIS–1. Itis relatively stringent in that it generally requires that an act or omission result indemonstrable harm in order to be classified as abuse or neglect. It permits exceptions inonly a few specific maltreatment categories, where the nature of the maltreatment itself isso egregious that one can infer that the child was harmed. The chief advantage of theHarm Standard is its strong objectivity. Its principal disadvantage is that it is so stringentthat it provides a perspective that is too narrow for many purposes, excluding even manychildren whom CPS substantiates or indicates as abused or neglected.The Endangerment Standard has been in use since the NIS–2. It includes allchildren who meet the Harm Standard but adds others as well. The central feature of theEndangerment Standard is that it counts children who were not yet harmed by abuse orneglect if a sentinel thought that the maltreatment endangered the children or if a CPSinvestigation substantiated or indicated their maltreatment. In addition, theEndangerment Standard is slightly more lenient than the Harm Standard in allowing abroader array of perpetrators, including adult caretakers other than parents in certainmaltreatment categories and teenage caretakers as perpetrators of sexual abuse.Following procedures that corresponded to those used in earlier NIS cycles,the NIS–4 study team unduplicated the data (so the study estimates represent eachmaltreated child only once), weighted the records (so the sample data could generate3