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

during the extra month but were already classified as investigated during the studyreference period.) These 50 additional children increased the national estimate of thenumber of Endangerment Standard children who received CPS investigation by 22,800.This increased the investigation rate for Endangerment Standard children by 0.8% from43.4% to 44.2%.Thus, extending the period for seeking maltreated children in CPSinvestigations by an additional month (from 3-months to 4-months) raised the NIS–4investigation rates across definitional standards by only about 1%.8.3Investigation Patterns Related to CPS Screening PoliciesThe NIS–4 provides estimates of the numbers and percentages of maltreatedchildren who received CPS investigation. Because of the limitations of the NIS data, thechildren who were not investigated have always represented an enigma to the study, inthat it is not possible to say whether the sentinels who recognized their maltreatment didnot report it to CPS or whether they did report it to CPS but CPS did not investigate thechild because the circumstances did not fit the agency’s criteria for screening the case infor investigation. These alternatives have quite different implications for policy.As Chapter 2 discussed, the NIS–4 includes supplementary studies to helpunderstand the situation of countable children who do not receive CPS investigation.One of these, the CPS Screening Policies Study (SPS), obtained detailed informationabout CPS screening criteria to determine what role they might play in screening outcountable children from CPS investigations (Greene, McPherson, and Sedlak, 2010)..In the first phase of the SPS, project staff interviewed the intake supervisorsin NIS–4 CPS agencies about their agencies’ screening criteria, asking them how theiragency would respond to situations described in a series of vignettes. The vignettesrepresented all specific forms of maltreatment specified in the NIS–4 maltreatmenttypology. In the second phase of the study, NIS–4 evaluative coders examined the dataforms for countable children in the main study who had not received a CPS investigation.Considering children in the jurisdiction in each CPS agency, the coders applied theagency’s screening criteria to the maltreatment situations on the children’s data forms anddecided whether, according to the criteria CPS purportedly used, the agency would have8–24