About 200 children are abused every day in New York State.
A new report reveals that not only are hundreds of kids abused daily, but 114 children also died in 2010 as a result of abuse or neglect.
“That number should shock the conscience of every one of us,” Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said.
Hynes, along with other borough district attorneys, said today that the government should fund voluntary home visiting programs, which supporters say can prevent abuse.
In home visiting programs, which parents can choose to participate in, people visit new moms and dads, giving tips and advice that officials say can stave off abuse by giving families support.
For example, in the Nurse-Family Partnership, nurses visit new parents, and in Health Families New York, community members visit, who are trained to give advice and support.
According to a report released today by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York, a group in Albany, these programs can reduce abuse and neglect by as much as 50 percent.
“The evidence is very clear that it’s very effective,” said Meredith Wiley at Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York.
The report records 77,000 abused or neglected children in New York in 2010.
But the report’s authors caution that the numbers of victims could be even higher, because many cases of abuse and neglect are not reported.
They estimated that the number of New York kids abused every year could actually be more than 230,000.
Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan said the government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, “and in particular, those citizens who are most vulnerable and cannot protect themselves.”
“As prosecutors, we are able to apprehend and prosecute many of the people who hurt children,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown added. “But by the time they come to our attention, far too many children have already been battered, bruised, left unfed, sexually assaulted, and, sadly, killed.”
In a sobering statistic, the data reveals that many abuse victims grow up to abuse their kids — the report
estimates that 3,000 people abused their children because they
themselves were abused or neglected.
