About This Statistic
This statistic shows the child abuse rate in the U.S. in 2015, by race/ethnicity . In 2015, the child abuse rate for children of Hispanic origin was at 8.4, indicating 8.4 out of 1,000 Hispanic children in the U.S. suffered from some sort of abuse.
Child abuse in the U.S.
The child abuse rate in the United States is highest among African-American victims with a rate of 14.5 cases per 1,000 children. It is most common among children between two to five years of age, with about 172 thousand cases reported in 2015. Child abuse cases are fairly evenly distributed between girls and boys . However, more boys than girls were victims of abuse resulting in death.
The most common type of maltreatment was neglect, with about 515 thousand cases in the country, followed by physical abuse with 118 thousand cases.
Child abuse is often reported by teachers, law enforcement officers, or social service providers. In the large majority of cases, the perpetrators of abuse were a parent of the victim.
Risk factors, such as teen pregnancy, violent crime, and poverty that are associated with abuse and neglect have been found to be quite high in the United States in comparison to other countries.
The total number of reported cases of child abuse was highest in 2001 with 905 thousand cases and had fallen to 754 thousand cases in 2015.
