This indispensable handbook, Raising Safe Kids on personal safety, is included in every Yello Dyno Pro Curriculum.

Children/Victims Statistics

If a child feels he has to be fearful all the time, it breeds cynicism and distrust. He'll tend to see others as essentially bad. He may also become an adult who takes no chances, which is very limiting-because without risk, he's not likely to be successful in life. Fear in itself is a form of victimization.
- Jack Levin, Ph.D., director of the Program for the Study of Violence at Northwestern University in Boston as quoted in Redbook, February 1998

• Recent studies show that while the statistics on most other forms of violent crime are dramatically decreasing, reports of child abuse and neglect have risen since 1993. In fact, it is now believed that every day, three children are killed as a result of abuse or neglect in this country
.- Prevent Child Abuse America, 2001.

• More than 3 million cases of abuse and neglect were reported last year.
.- Prevent Child Abuse America, 2001.

• Nearly 5 of every 6 sexual assaults of young juveniles occurred in a residence. Crimes against older juveniles and, especially, adults victims were far more likely to occur in other places. Weapons other than the offender's hands and feet were rarely used in the sexual assault of juveniles. The temporal pattern of sexual assault show that unlike adults, young juveniles are at highest risk of sexual assault in the hours when meals are served and after school.
-Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement,
7/00, NCJ 182990, U.S. Department of Justice

• The number one concern of children is their personal safety.
.- ABC World News Tonight

• 1-3 Girls and 1-7 Boys under the age of 18 ors are sexually abused.
-1989 Report presented for Fed. Parliament (RCMP) Jaclyn Mace @ Statistics Canada

• Violent stranger abductions - 5 a year end in death or long term missing.
1989 Report presented for Fed. Parliament (RCMP) Jaclyn Mace @ Statistics Canada

• The abuse and neglect of America's young nearly doubled between 1986 and 1993.
-The Oakland Press, 9/19/96 from a study by the Department of Health and Human Services.

• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that 1.5 million children disappear, run away, are kidnapped or get kicked out of their homes. If true, that staggering figure means that roughly 1 of every 42 youngsters is in danger.
-Time Magazine.

• Based on NIBRS data, crimes against juvenile victims are the large majority (67%) of sexual assaults handled by law enforcement agencies. One of every seven victims was under the age of 6, and over a third of all sexual assaults involved a child who was under the age of 12. This implies that by design the National Crime Victimization Survey is missing over a third of all sexual assaults that occur in the United States each year.
- Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement,
7/00, NCJ 182990, U.S. Department of Justice

• An average of 5.5 children per 10,000 enrolled in day care are sexually abused, an average of 8.9 children out of every 10,000 are abused in the home.
-Finkelhor & Willias, 1988.

• 1 in every 3 to 4 girls is sexually abused before age 18 and 1 in 6 to 8 boys is sexually assaulted by the age of 18.
-Diana Russell Survey, 1978

• 3 in 4 child victims of violence were female.
-BJS Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991.

• A 1996 national incidence study conducted by the federal government found that girls are sexually abused 3 times more often than boys.
-Sedlak, A and Broadhurst, D (1996) Executive Summary of the Third National Incidence
Study of Child Abuse and Neglect.

• It is estimated that at least 20% of American women and 5-16% of American men experienced some form of sexual abuse as children.
-Finkelhor, D (1994) Future of Children.

• Estimates suggest that males account for 25-35% of child abuse victim.
- Finkelhor, D., 1994.

• More than1/2 the violent crimes committed against children involved victims age 12 or younger.
-BJS Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991.

• Children between the ages of 12 and 17 are beaten, raped and robbed 5 times more often than adults 35 and older.
-The Arizona Rep. 3/30/97.

• The most vulnerable age for sexual abuse is between 7 and 13 years.
- Finkelhor, D., 1994.

• 1 in 3 victims of physical abuse is an infant less than a year old.
-The Carnegie Corporation of New York

• 54% of sexually abused children are victimized before age 7, 84% before age 12.
-Ernest E. Allen, President of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1991.

• Contrary to popular impressions, children aged 12 and up-particularly teenagers-account for the vast majority of actual long-term child abductions and murders, with numbers dramatically higher among children age 14 to 17 than any other age group. Girls are twice as likely to be victims as boys in abduction murders, and the chances that an abductor is a stranger increases with the victim's age.
-Redbook, February 1998.

• 42.9% of child assaults tool place in the victim's home, 41.8% in the offender's home.
- Greenfield, 1996.

• 75% of sexual abuse victims are abused more than once.
-Conte and Schumerman, 1984.

• Research has shown that the absence of a parent from the home increases the child's risk. In addition, interviews with perpetrators suggest that they look for vulnerable children. Such children are young and appear to be isolated, depressed or lonely.
-NCPCA 1996

• The rate of sexual abuse among children with disabilities is 1.75 times higher than among children without disabilities.
-National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1993.

• As many as 1 in 6 teens admits there are places where they never feel safe, such as walking to and from a friend's house or on public transportation.
-Louis Harris and Associates, Between Hope and Fear: Teens Speak Out on Crime and the Community

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