Re: Landmark Prevention Conference, April '99

[David Finkelhor <david.finkelhor@xxxxxxx>]

This looks like a great conference but I want to draw people's attention to
a problem in our field. Please look at the rationale below:

>4th ANNUAL CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION CONFERENCE
>Prevent Child Abuse - New York
>April 8-10, 1999  *  Albany Marriott Hotel, Albany, NY
>in collaboration with Cornell University's 
>Family Life Development Center, and
>The Wm. B. Hoyt Memorial Children & Family Trust Fund


>Conference Rationale
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>The incidence of child abuse and neglect has doubled since 1980.   Family
>service providers are encountering more and more destructive family
>relationships.  Child and youth violence is increasing both in frequency
>and severity.

This is fairly misleading. While child abuse "reports" are up since 1980,
in fact reports have stopped their sharp increases since the early 1990s,
sexual abuse reports are actually in decline, youth crime and youth
homicide have started to decline, child abuse fatalities have been fairly
flat for the last few years.  Even when reports were rising rapidly many
people doubted that CAN incidence was truly on the rise.  It's a serious
problem, we don't have to exaggerate its importance, and we don't "need"
continual increases to justify prevention. In fact, we might be better off
claiming some progress for all we've been doing for the last 25 years.



David Finkelhor *  Crimes Against Children Research Center * Family
Research Laboratory * Department of Sociology * University of New Hampshire
* Durham, NH  03824 * 603-862-2761 (phone) * 603-862-1122 (fax)

davidf@christa.unh.edu   (or)
david.finkelhor@unh.edu

(603) 862-2761  phone
(603) 862-1122  fax

The FRL has a website: http://www.unh.edu/frl/index.html