U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of Justice Programs 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

Access OJJDP publications online at ojjdp.gov.

Learn more about the Attorney General’s Defending Childhood 

Initiative at justice.gov/ag/defendingchildhood.

Find out more about OJJDP’s Safe Start Initiative at 

safestartcenter.org.

Children’s Exposure to Violence

N A T I O N A L S U R V E Y O F

Children’s Exposure to Violence

Office of Justice Programs Innovation • Partnerships • Safer Neighborhoods www.ojp.usdoj.gov

Melodee Hanes, Acting Administrator

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Child and Youth Victimization 

Known to Police, School, and 

Medical Authorities 

David Finkelhor, Richard Ormrod, Heather Turner, 

and Sherry Hamby 

Considerable efforts have been made 

during the last generation to encourage children and their families to report 

victimization to authorities. Nonetheless, 

concern persists that most childhood 

victimization remains hidden. The 2008 

inventory of childhood victimization—the 

National Study of Children’s Exposure to 

Violence (NatSCEV) (see “History of the 

National Survey of Children’s Exposure 

to Violence,” p. 4)—allowed an assessment of whether authorities, including 

police, school, and medical authorities, 

are identifying victimizations. The victim, 

the victim’s family, or a bystander may 

have disclosed the victimization to those 

authorities, or the authorities may have 

directly observed the victimization or 

evidence of that victimization. Among the 

survey findings: 

•	 Thirteen	percent	of	children	victimized	

in the previous year had at least one of 

their victimizations known to police, 

and 46 percent had one known to 

school, police, or medical authorities. 

•	 Authorities	knew	about	a	majority	

of serious victimizations, including 

incidents of sexual abuse by an adult, 

gang assaults, and kidnappings, but 

they were mostly unaware of other 

kinds of serious victimizations, such 

as dating violence and completed and 

attempted rape. 

•	 In	general,	school	officials	knew	about	

victimization episodes considerably 

more often (42 percent) than police 

(13 percent) or medical personnel (2 

percent). However, police were the 

most likely to know about kidnapping, 

neglect, and sexual abuse by an adult. 

•	 More	victimization	and	abuse	appears	

to be known to authorities currently 

than was the case in a comparable 

1992 survey. 

Efforts To Increase 

Reporting of Child 

Abuse and 

Victimization 

The National Crime Victimization Survey 

(NCVS) finds that violent crimes against 

juveniles	are	less	likely	to	be	known	

to authorities than are crimes against 

adults, and they are particularly unlikely 

April 2012 

A Message From OJJDP 

Children are exposed to violence every 

day in their homes, schools, and communities. Such exposure can cause them 

significant physical, mental, and emotional harm with long-term effects that 

can last well into adulthood. 

The Attorney General launched Defending Childhood in September 2010 to unify 

the Department of Justice’s efforts to 

address children’s exposure to violence 

under one initiative. Through Defending 

Childhood, the Department is raising 

public awareness about the issue and 

supporting practitioners, researchers, and 

policymakers as they seek solutions to 

address it. Now a component of Defending Childhood, OJJDP’s Safe Start initiative continues efforts begun in 1999 to 

enhance practice, research, training and 

technical assistance, and public education about children and violence. 

Under Safe Start, OJJDP conducted the 

National Survey of Children’s Exposure 

to Violence, the most comprehensive 

effort to date to measure the extent 

and nature of the violence that children 

endure and its consequences on their 

lives. This is the first study to ask children and caregivers about exposure to 

a range of violence, crime, and abuse in 

children’s lives. 

As amply evidenced in this bulletin 

series, children’s exposure to violence 

is pervasive and affects all ages. The 

research findings reported here and in 

the other bulletins in this series are critical to informing our efforts to protect children from its damaging effects. 
 

 

 

 

to be known to the police (Finkelhor and 

Ormrod, 1999). Authorities are less likely 

to know about childhood victimizations 

for a number of reasons (Finkelhor and 

Wolak, 2003; Finkelhor, Wolak, and Berliner, 2001). Clearly children, both victims 

and bystanders, are easily intimidated by 

offenders	and	fear	retaliation.	In	addition,	

children and their families often wish to 

deal with crime and victimization informally. They sometimes fear the consequences 

of disclosure to authorities, including interviews with child protection authorities 

and involvement with the police, courts, 

and	child	welfare	agencies.	In	other	cases,	

victims, families, and bystanders do not 

perceive the victimizations as something 

that would interest authorities. 

One	of	the	major	public	policy	efforts	of	

the past generation has been to increase 

the proportion of abuse and victimization 

cases known to authorities. The mandatory reporting statutes enacted in the wake 

of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) of 19741

 had this as a 

goal	(O’Neill	Murray	and	Gesiriech,	2010;	

Stoltsfus, 2009). The message of virtually 

all education programs dealing with child 

maltreatment, bullying, dating violence, 

and a host of other problems has been to 

“tell someone and get help” (Finkelhor, 

2009).	In	addition,	criminal	justice	and	

child protection agencies have instituted 

various reforms to try to increase victim 

and family confidence in those agencies 

as a way to promote disclosure (Cheung, 

2008; Jones et al., 2005). 

Despite these policy initiatives, limited research on authorities’ knowledge of child 

victimization has hampered efforts to 

promote disclosure and track its patterns. 

Cited research frequently refers to studies 

completed decades ago or is based on 

adult retrospective recollection (London 

et al., 2005).2

	It	is	not	at	all	clear	that	such	

data reflect current experience after a 

generation of mobilization and increased 

awareness about child victimization in its 

many forms. 

NatSCEV is the first comprehensive national survey to report on children’s exposure 

to violence and its effects for both pastyear and lifetime victimizations from age 1 

month to age 17. As part of the study, the 

researchers examined past-year victimizations that were known to authorities. This 

bulletin looks first at what and how much 

authorities know about child victimization; and then, at what the implications 

of the study findings are for increasing 

Methodology 

The National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV) was designed 

to obtain past-year and lifetime prevalence estimates of a wide range of childhood 

victimizations and was conducted between January and May 2008. The survey recorded the experiences of a nationally representative sample of 4,549 children from 

ages 1 month to 17 years living in the contiguous United States. 

Sampling Techniques 

The interviews with parents and youth were conducted over the phone. Sample 

households were drawn from a nationwide sampling frame of residential telephone 

numbers through random digit dialing. To ensure that the study included an adequate number of minority and low-income respondents for more accurate subgroup analyses, the researchers oversampled telephone exchanges that had high 

concentrations of African American, Hispanic, or low-income households. Sampling 

methods and procedures have been described in greater detail elsewhere (Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, and Hamby, 2009; Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, Hamby, and 

Kracke, 2009). 

Interviewers first spoke with an adult caregiver in each household to obtain family demographic information. They then randomly selected the child with the most 


recent birthday to be interviewed. Interviewers spoke directly with children ages 10 


to 17. For children younger than 10, they interviewed the caregiver who “is most 


familiar with the child’s daily routine and experiences.”
 

Questions Regarding Authorities’ Knowledge of Victimization 

This survey used an enhanced version of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire 

(JVQ), an inventory of childhood victimization (Finkelhor, Hamby, Ormrod, and 

Turner, 2005; Finkelhor, Ormrod, Turner, and Hamby, 2005a; Hamby et al., 2004). 

The JVQ obtains reports on 48 forms of youth victimization covering 5 general areas 

of interest: conventional crime, maltreatment, victimization by peers and siblings, 

sexual victimization, and witnessing and exposure to violence (Finkelhor, Ormrod, 

Turner, and Hamby, 2005b). 

Followup questions for each victimization item gathered additional information about 

each event, including whether, to the respondent’s knowledge, school officials or 

police knew about the event. Authorities could learn about a victimization event from 

reports by the victim, the family, or another participant or bystander or by witnessing 

the incident or seeing evidence of the incident. 

Victimizations Analyzed for Authorities’ Knowledge of Events 

The analysis for this bulletin examined past-year victimizations. The researchers 

aggregated two categories of victimizations known to authorities: physical assaults 

and sexual victimizations. Physical assaults included assault with a weapon, assault 

without a weapon, attempted assault, threatened assault, kidnapping, bias-motivated 

attack, physical abuse, gang/group assault, peer/sibling assault, nonsexual genital 

assault, and dating violence. Sexual victimizations included sexual assault by a 

known adult, sexual assault by a nonspecified adult, sexual assault by a peer, 

completed or attempted rape, sexual exposure/flashing, and sexual harassment. 

disclosure of child victimizations and for 	 or other bystanders disclosed the victimeffective prevention and treatment.	 ization or an authority like a teacher or 

police officer directly observed it. The study 

looked at authorities’ knowledge of victim- Authorities’ Knowledge ization from three perspectives: 

of Child Victimization •	 Which	types	of	victimizations	were	

According to the NatSCEV survey, 46 per- authorities most likely to know about?

cent of the victimized youth had at least •	 Which	authorities	were	more	likely	 one victimization in the past year that to know of various types of child was known to school, police, or medical victimizations? authorities. Being known to an authority 

could mean that victims, family members, 

2 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

•	 What	factors	were	associated	with	

authorities’ knowledge of child 

victimizations? 

Types of Victimizations 

Known to Authorities 

Direct victimization. The degree to which 

authorities knew about victimizations varied according to victimization type (table 

1). Typically, authorities were most likely 

to know about more serious victimizations 

like sexual assault by a known (69 percent) 

or nonspecific adult (76 percent), kidnapping (74 percent), and gang or group 

assault (70 percent). Authorities also often 

knew about types of nonphysical victimization that are likely to occur in school, 

such as relational aggression (52 percent) 

and property theft (47 percent), or that 

leave signs that a teacher in the classroom 

or a doctor in the course of a medical 

examination might see, such as neglect 

(48 percent). Authorities were least likely 

to know about victimizations that peers 

were most likely to commit, including peer 

and sibling assault (17 percent), dating 

violence (15 percent), being flashed (17 

percent), and completed and attempted 

rape (14 percent). 

Indirect victimization. Authorities’ knowledge of indirect victimization also varied 

considerably. Obviously, murders that 

children were exposed to and other very 

public offenses, such as threats or vandalism against schools, were widely known. 

Also, authorities knew about approximately one-half (49 percent) of the episodes of 

children witnessing domestic violence. 

Knowledge of Victimization 

by Police, School, and 

Medical Authorities 

School authorities were the officials most 

likely to know about past-year victimization events (42 percent of victims had a 

victimization known to school authorities). 

Police knew about 13 percent of children 

who had been victimized in the past year. 

Medical	authorities	were	the	least	likely	

to know about victimizations (2 percent of 

victims reported that medical authorities 

knew of past-year victimizations). 

Although police were generally less likely 

to know about victimization events than 

school authorities, they were more likely 

to know about incidents of several types, 

including kidnapping (71 percent police 

versus 46 percent school), neglect (37 

percent police versus 29 percent school), 

Table 1: Past-Year Victimizations Known to Police, School, and 

Medical Authorities 

Percent Known by— 

Any 

Victimization screener authority* Police* School* Medical* 

Any victimization 45.7 12.7 42.3 1.8 

Direct victimizations 

Sexual abuse—nonspecific adult 76.1 76.1 28.5 19.1 

Kidnapping 73.5 71.1 46.0 5.5 

Gang/group	assault 70.1 34.4 53.3 8.7 

Sexual abuse—known adult 69.0 64.9 30.2 7.4 

Custodial interference 54.0 35.5 36.9 

Bias attack 52.5 17.0 52.5 1.8 

Relational aggression 51.5 3.8 51.5 

Attempted assault 51.1 15.8 45.0 

Neglect 47.8 36.9 29.2 

Personal theft 46.8 17.9 37.7 

Threatened assault 46.5 19.1 42.8 

Assault—no weapon 43.6 8.6 41.7 2.5 

Assault with weapon 43.5 14.2 38.1 7.7 

Sexual abuse—peer 42.4 13.1 37.8 0.0 

Sexual harassment 38.0 9.3 37.8 

Physical abuse by caregiver 33.0 19.1 28.8 10.0 

Robbery 31.9 3.4 31.4 0.3 

Vandalism 24.2 3.4 22.3 

Psychological/emotional	abuse	by	caregiver 23.1 9.0 19.6 0.0 

Bullying 22.2 0.8 22.2 0.3 

Nonsexual genital assault 19.1 4.3 16.0 1.3 

Peer/sibling	assault 16.9 1.5 16.4 0.6 

Flashing/exposure 16.6 7.1 15.0 

Dating violence 15.2 3.6 14.0 0.8 

Rape	(completed/attempted) 14.0 10.0 12.4 3.5 

Indirect victimizations 

School threat 95.7 89.0 95.1 

School vandalism 94.4 66.9 92.3 

Close person murdered 87.2 86.5 39.8 

Witness to assault with no weapon 66.5 40.7 54.9 

Know about robbery of close person 62.3 61.1 18.3 

Witness to assault with weapon 59.6 41.2 38.1 

Exposure to shooting of another 59.2 57.7 16.3 

Know about threat to close person with weapon 57.4 52.9 13.7 

Parent beat parent 53.6 51.5 29.5 

Household theft 53.0 48.0 14.3 

Parent hit parent 49.1 44.8 22.0 

Witness to domestic violence 48.9 42.3 22.9 

Know about sexual victimization of close person 47.4 44.2 18.5 

Parent threatened parent 40.8 35.3 24.4 

Witness to physical abuse 38.8 29.8 31.7 

Parent pushed parent 36.2 28.3 19.1 

Parents argued and broke something 33.0 25.2 21.3 

Household teen or adult hit family member 29.1 24.3 16.9 

*Based on weighted data; victim counts rounded to nearest whole number. 

Source: Adapted from Finkelhor et al., 2011. 

3 
sexual abuse by a known (65 percent 

police versus 30 percent school) or nonspecific adult (76 percent police versus 29 

percent school), and witnessing of domestic violence (42 percent police versus 23 

percent school). 

Although few episodes were known to 

medical authorities, the most common 

were sexual abuse by a known (7 percent) 

or nonspecific adult (19 percent), gang 

assault (9 percent), physical abuse by a 

caretaker (10 percent), and assault with a 

weapon (8 percent). 

The finding that schools are more likely 

to find out about child victimization than 

other authorities is consistent with several earlier studies (Finkelhor and DziubaLeatherman, 1994; Sedlak and Broadhurst, 

1996). This is understandable, given how 

much time children spend in school and 

interact with school professionals. 

Factors Associated With 

Authorities’ Knowledge of 

Victimization 

The researchers used multivariable 

analyses to identify the characteristics of 

child victims and victimization episodes 

that made it more likely for authorities to 

know of those incidents. 

Police. Police were more likely to know 

about	physical	assaults	(see	“Methodology” for specific types of victimization that 

were defined as physical assaults) that 

had the following characteristics compared to those without those characteristics: ones that occurred outside the home 

or	school,	involved	a	serious	injury	or	

nonfamily or adult perpetrator, had a bias 

motivation, or made the child very scared. 

They were also more likely to know about 

crimes against victims who were female, 

of lower socioeconomic status (SES), or 

living in a rural area. Police were more 

likely to know of sexual victimizations 

(see	“Methodology”	for	a	list	of	sexual	

victimizations) when an adult committed 

the offense; when the child was afraid; or 

when the victim was black, mixed race, 

or other race (including Asian American, 

American	Indian,	and	Pacific	Islander).	

School officials. School officials were 

more likely to know about physical 

assaults that had the following characteristics compared to those without those 

characteristics: ones that occurred in 

school,	involved	a	serious	injury	or	a	nonfamily or an adult perpetrator, had a bias 

motivation, or made the victim afraid or 

feel bad. They were more likely to know 

History of the National Survey of Children’s Exposure 

to Violence 

Under the leadership of then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder in June 1999, the 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) created the Safe 

Start initiative to prevent and reduce the impact of children’s exposure to violence. 

As a part of this initiative and with a growing need to document the full extent of 

children’s exposure to violence, OJJDP launched the National Survey of Children’s 

Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV) with the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

NatSCEV is the first national incidence and prevalence study to comprehensively 

examine the extent and nature of children’s exposure to violence across all ages, 

settings, and timeframes. Conducted between January and May 2008, it measured 

the past-year and lifetime exposure to violence for children age 17 and younger 

across several major categories: conventional crime, child maltreatment, victimization by peers and siblings, sexual victimization, witnessing and indirect victimization 

(including exposure to community violence and family violence), school violence and 

threats, and Internet victimization. This survey marks the first attempt to measure 

children’s exposure to violence in the home, school, and community across all age 

groups from 1 month to age 17, and the first attempt to measure the cumulative 

exposure to violence over the child’s lifetime. The survey asked children and their 

adult caregivers about not only the incidents of violence that children suffered and 

witnessed themselves but also other related crime and threat exposures, such as 

theft or burglary from a child’s household, being in a school that was the target of 

a credible bomb threat, and being in a war zone or an area where ethnic violence 

occurred. 

The study was developed under the direction of OJJDP and was designed and 

conducted by the Crimes against Children Research Center of the University of 

New Hampshire. It provides data on the full extent of violence in the daily lives 

of children. The primary purpose of NatSCEV is to document the incidence and 

prevalence of children’s exposure to a broad array of violent experiences across a 

wide developmental spectrum. The research team asked followup questions about 

specific events, including where the exposure to violence occurred, whether injury 

resulted, how often the child was exposed to a specific type of violence, and the 

child’s relationship to the perpetrator and (when the child witnessed violence) the 

victim. In addition, the survey documents differences in exposure to violence across 

gender, race, socioeconomic status, family structure, region, urban/rural residence, 

and developmental stage of the child; specifies how different forms of violent victimization “cluster” or co-occur; identifies individual-, family-, and community-level 

predictors of violence exposure among children; examines associations between 

levels/types of exposure to violence and children’s mental and emotional health; 

and assesses the extent to which children disclose incidents of violence to various 

individuals and the nature and source of assistance or treatment provided (if any). 

about attempts and threats than actual as- Disclosure of Child 

saults. School authorities were also more 

likely to know about physical assaults on Victimization to

girls, children younger than 13, children Authorities 

who were victims of other assaults in the Looking at the NatSCEV data from the past year, and lower SES youth. They were perspective of disclosure of child victim­ less likely to know about physical assaults ization, some patterns emerge: on Hispanic victims. 

•	 The	proportion	of	child	victimiza- School officials were more likely to know tions that are disclosed to authorities 

of sexual victimizations that occurred in appears to be increasing as compared school, were committed by an unidentified with two decades ago. perpetrator, occurred to a child victim •	 Victims	of	multiple	victimizations	may	 between 2 and 9 years old, or occurred to be more likely to come to authorities’ a child who lived with a stepparent or an notice. unmarried partner of a parent. 

4 
•	 Authorities	were	less	likely	to	learn	of	

victimization episodes that involved 

certain groups of victims (boys, Hispanic youth, and higher SES youth) or 

peer or family perpetrators. 

Increases in Victimizations 

Known to Authorities During 

the Past Two Decades 

Comparing the NatSCEV study findings 

with another national survey of victimization completed in 1992 (Finkelhor and 

Dziuba-Leatherman, 1994) suggests that 

victimizations known to authorities have 

increased	over	time.	In	the	1992	telephone	

survey of youth ages 10 to 16 only 25 percent of all victimizations of 10- to 16-yearolds were known to police or school 

authorities (versus 51 percent in the 

NatSCEV study for that age group), only 29 

percent of kidnappings (versus 73 percent 

in the NatSCEV study), and only 6 percent 

of incidents of sexual assault or sexual 

abuse (versus 11 percent in the NatSCEV 

study). These changes may reflect efforts 

by authorities and advocates to promote 

disclosure. Because early disclosure is 

believed to facilitate prevention, increased 

disclosure rates are consistent with the 

findings that childhood victimization rates 

have fallen considerably since the early 

1990s (Finkelhor, 2008; Finkelhor, Turner, 

Ormrod, and Hamby, 2010). 

Knowledge of Multiple Child 

Victimizations 

According to the youth and caregivers 

interviewed in the NatSCEV study, a considerable proportion of child victims are 

known to authorities. However, the figure 

given earlier—that school officials, police, 

or medical authorities knew about 46 

percent of children who were victimized 

in the previous year—overstates the level 

of knowledge somewhat in that some of 

these victims had multiple victimizations, 

not	all	of	which	were	disclosed.	Moreover,	

the variable used in this study, “known to 

authorities,” does not necessarily mean 

that the victim disclosed the victimization. 

A bystander may have reported it, or an 

authority, such as a teacher, may have witnessed it. Nonetheless, properly trained 

officials who know about at least one victimization have the opportunity to identify 

a child and ask about other victimizations. 

Moreover,	the	finding	that	school	officials	

were more likely to know about victims of 

more than one episode of physical abuse 

within the past year indicates that youth 

with multiple victimizations were some of 

those most likely to be known to authorities in general. 

Factors That Impede 

Disclosure of Child 

Victimization 

Victim characteristics. Authorities are 

less likely to know about victimizations 

of boys, probably reflecting male social 

norms, sometimes referred to as “the boy 

code,” of self-sufficiency that stigmatizes 

help seeking, norms that some educational 

programs are now trying to counteract 

(Pollack and Pipher, 1999). They are also 

less likely to know about Hispanic victims, perhaps reflecting specific Hispanic 

cultural concerns as well as issues about 

citizenship status and legitimacy. Authorities are less likely to know about higher 

SES victims, perhaps reflecting suspicion 

among these families about the negative impact on their children, combined 

with having the resources and status to 

deflect authorities’ involvement. Efforts to 

emphasize the helpful rather than stigmatizing features of professional intervention 

might be useful to counteract some of the 

concerns in these groups. 

Perpetrator characteristics. In	general,	the	

study shows that authorities are less likely 

to know about victimizations involving 

peer and family perpetrators than those 

involving adult and nonfamily perpetrators. As noted earlier, authorities were 

least likely to know about peer or sibling 

assault, dating assault, and attempted or 

completed rape, all of which peers are 

more	likely	to	commit.	In	particular,	authorities are far more likely to know about 

sexual offenses that adults commit than 

those that youth commit. This may be 

because adult sexual offenses are seen as 

more criminal, whereas peer allegiances 

may inhibit reporting of sexual crimes by 

younger perpetrators. 

Implications for 

Authorities and 

Practitioners 

The findings suggest both progress and 

challenges in the effort to identify abused 

and victimized children. The higher rates 

of victimizations known to authorities 

found in the NatSCEV study may mean that 

past efforts to promote disclosure have 

been working and need to be sustained. 

But the study also shows that a considerable portion of childhood exposure to victimization is still unknown to authorities. 

It	suggests	that	more	outreach	is	needed	

to boys, Hispanic youth, and higher SES 

groups	in	particular.	It	also	suggests	that	

disclosure promotion needs to be directed 

toward episodes that involve family members and peer perpetrators. Educators 

have long recognized the need to promote 

disclosures about such family and peer 

episodes. An important task for authorities 

is to persuade children and families that 

they have resources available to help in 

these situations and that they can protect 

victims against retaliation. 

5 
A benefit of increased disclosure of victimization to authorities is greater access 

to effective prevention and treatment. 

More	interventions	that	are	truly	helpful	in	

preventing future victimizations and treating the negative effects of victimization on 

development are being developed, tested, 

and deemed effective. These include conflict	resolution	programs	(Grossman	et	al.,	

1997), parenting education (Chaffin et al., 

2004), and cognitive-behavioral treatments 

for	victimization	trauma	(Cohen,	Mannarino, and Deblinger, 2006; Kolko and Swenson, 2002; Stein et al., 2003). Therefore, in 

addition to more education and awareness 

to encourage disclosure, communities 

need also to ensure that they have professionals trained in such evidence-based 

programs to work with children and families once victimization is disclosed. Not 

all communities have such resources, and 

when they do not, it may undermine the 

value of gaining disclosures and reports. 

To improve access to services, more collaboration is needed among agencies that 

work	with	children.	In	particular,	because	

so many victimizations come to the attention of school authorities, it is crucial that 

schools be connected to multidisciplinary 

resources, including mental health, social 

service, medical, and law enforcement 

resources (Asnes and Leventhal, 2011) 

Endnotes 

1. Public Law 93–247, 88 Stat. 5, as amended (codified at 42 U.S.C. 5101–5119c). 

For information about the Act, see U.S. 

Department of Health and Human Services 

(2004). For an overview of federal and 

state child welfare programs under the 

Act, see Stoltsfus (2009). 

2. For an overview of research on childhood exposure to violence and its aftermath, see Kracke and Hahn (2008). 

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Acknowledgments 

This bulletin was written by David Finkelhor, Ph.D., Director, Crimes against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire; Richard Ormrod, Ph.D., 

Research Professor, Crimes against Children Research Center, University of New 

Hampshire; Heather Turner, Ph.D., Professor, Crimes against Children Research 

Center, University of New Hampshire; and Sherry Hamby, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Sewanee, University of the South. OJJDP 

wishes to acknowledge the contributions to this bulletin of Melissa T. Merrick, Ph.D., 

Epidemiologist, Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention 

and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). OJJDP also wishes 

to acknowledge the support of CDC for the National Survey of Children’s Exposure 

to Violence and its partnership in the Safe Start initiative to create safe, stable, and 

nurturing environments for children and their families. 

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This bulletin was prepared under grant 

number 2005–JL–FX–0048 from the Office of 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

(OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice. 

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