Reply #110: interesting demographics from the USDHHS

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http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm08/chapter5.htm

Age and Sex of Perpetrators
For FFY 2008, 56.2 percent of the perpetrators were women, 42.6 percent were men and 1.1 percent were of unknown sex.2 Of the women who were perpetrators, more than 40 percent (45.3%) were younger than 30 years of age, compared with one-third of the men (35.2%) (figure 5–1). These proportions have remained consistent for the past few years.


Race and Ethnicity of Perpetrators
The racial distribution of perpetrators was similar to the race of their victims. During FFY 2008, nearly one-half (47.8%) of perpetrators were White and one-fifth (19.6%) were African-American. Approximately 20 percent (19.5%) of perpetrators were Hispanic.3 These proportions also have remained consistent for the past few years.


Perpetrator Relationship
Approximately 80 percent (80.1%) of perpetrators were parents.4 Other relatives accounted for an additional 6.5 percent. Unmarried partners of parents accounted for 4.4 percent (figure 5–2). Of the parents who were perpetrators, more than 90 percent (90.9%) were biological parents, 4.4 percent were stepparents, and 0.7 percent were adoptive parents.5


Types of Maltreatment
More than one-half (61.1%) of all perpetrators were found to have neglected children.6 More than 13 percent (13.4%) of all perpetrators were associated with more than one type of maltreatment. Approximately 10 percent (10.0%) of perpetrators physically abused children and 6.8 percent sexually abused children.

Perpetrators were analyzed by relationship to their victims and type of maltreatment. For this analysis, a perpetrator is counted once for each child for each report. Therefore, the pattern of perpetrators closely mirrors the pattern of maltreatment types. In other words, neglect represented both the most frequent form of maltreatment and the greatest number of perpetrators. Physical abuse ranked second, and so on.

Overall, 6.8 percent of all perpetrators were associated with sexually abusing a child. The percentage of perpetrators of sexual abuse was highest among friends or neighbors (58.3%), "other" (41.0%), other professionals (36.1%), other relatives (30.8%), and child daycare providers (21.2%).7