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

ased on the most serious harm they suffered from countable maltreatment. The figureexcludes children who died as a result of their maltreatment, because their numbers aretoo small to appear on the graph. The absolute sizes of the bars in the figure reflect thetotal number of children per 1,000 who experienced the maltreatment or harm noted. Thepercentage shown next to each category label indicates the portion of the bar on the leftside of the graph, reflecting the percentage in the category that CPS investigated.Categorizing children as having received CPS investigative attention is achild-level conclusion, not specifically associated with the specific categories ofmaltreatment they experienced. This means, for example, that educationally neglectedchildren who are classified as having been investigated by CPS may have beenmaltreated in multiple ways, and the CPS investigation may, in fact, have focused on oneof the other categories of maltreatment they suffered, not on their educational neglect.Thus, the extent of CPS investigation for each maltreatment category is a generousmeasure, including children who may have received a CPS investigation for somethingother than the specific maltreatment in question. 105Despite the fact that these percentages overstate the extent of CPSinvestigation, they are still notably low. As reported above, 32% of all childrencountable under the Harm Standard had their maltreatment investigated by CPS. Figure8–2 shows that one-half of all a children who experienced abuse were investigated.Slight majorities of children who were physically abused (53%) or sexually abused (55%)received an investigation. Emotionally abused children and neglected children had lowerrates of CPS investigation (36% and 20%, respectively). As previous NIS studies alsofound, educationally neglected children had the lowest investigation rate (9%).105 Moreover, the maltreatment that was the focus of the CPS investigation need not have been countableunder the study definitions.8–5