news
Report: Racial Bias Not Only Culprit in Child abuse
By Stacey Patton
Special to the nnPa
thedefendersonline.com
O
from
nce again, National Child Abuse
Prevention Month is here and the
conversation on the physical safety
and welfare of children is taking place amid
blazing headlines over the controversial
issue of paddling in schools. A recent study
on race and child abuse reporting published
in the March issue of Pediatrics is making
waves throughout the social services com-
munity.
As disproportionate numbers of
Black children continue to enter
foster care, and a higher number
die each year as a result of abuse
and neglect, researchers at
Washington University in St. Louis
have sparked a serious debate over
the causes. Are the high numbers
of Black child victims reflective of
a higher degree of abuse at home?
Or are the numbers a product of
racial bias in reporting from mostly
White social workers who are more
likely to suspect maltreatment
among Blacks?
The study titled “Racial Bias in Child
Protection? A Comparison of Competing
Explanations Using National Data,” says
that child abuse really is more common in
Black than White homes. The study also
challenges long-held suspicions that the dis-
proportionately high numbers of Black
abuse cases are driven by racial bias in the
largely White social welfare workforce that
reports abuse.
“We knew [abuse of] Black kids was
reported about twice as often as it was for
White kids, and we were concerned that that
might be due to racism,” said Brett Drake a
social work professor at Washington
University and the study’s lead author. “We
also knew Black kids, in terms of econom-
ics, were facing a lot of problems that most
White kids were not facing.”
Using national reports and the most recent
available data from the Census Bureau, the
as well as White,” she added.
The study is not without its critics.
Sondra Jackson, Executive Director of the
Washington,
D.C.-based
Black
Administrators in Child Welfare said that
this study is yet another attempt to shift the
discussion away from race and toward other
causes like poverty. “People can use
research to disprove stuff they don’t want to
deal with,” she said.
Richard Wexler, Executive Director of the
National Coalition for Child Protection
Reform (NCCPR) offered critical com-
ments about this and other studies,
saying they are rife with fatal flaws
in that they fail to take into account
that child welfare decisions are
affected by both class and racial
biases, and they reinforce each
other.
“Three-quarters of all “substanti-
ated” cases of child maltreatment
involve neglect,” said Wexler. He
noted that state statutes typically
Brett Drake, Washington University define neglect as lack of adequate
food, clothing, shelter or supervi-
sion – “the definition of poverty.”
Wexler added, “It makes perfect
sense that poverty, in addition to
is that huge numbers of Black people are causing higher rates of infant mortality, low
living under devastating circumstances. birth weight, etc. would both contribute to
“Mitigating poverty, and the effects of more actual maltreatment, if only due to the
poverty, would be the most powerful way to additional stress that comes with being
poor, but also, more important, to the
reduce child maltreatment,” Drake said.
Drake and his colleagues found that about appearance of more maltreatment when the
17 per 1,000 Black children were abused or poverty itself is confused with neglect.”
Wexler and other critics have noted that
neglected in 2009, compared to only 9 in
1,000 White children. The study noted that since Blacks are disproportionately poor,
almost three times as many Blacks as
Whites live below the poverty line, and that
economic need plays a huge role in child
abuse.
Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor at
Harvard Law School supports the study’s
findings. “There is no good evidence Black
kids are removed for reasons related to
bias,” she said at a recent conference on
race and child welfare hosted by Harvard.
“We need to focus on prevention of mal-
treatment and protection of Black children
study found that of the 702,000 cases of
substantiated child abuse in 2009, 44 per-
cent involved White children who make up
75 percent of the population, and 22 percent
involved Black children, who comprise 12
percent of the population. In 2009, Black
children represented 21 percent of the total
population of abused children.
“The problem is not that (child protective
services) workers are racist,” Drake said.
While the study does not preclude the pos-
sibility of a racial thread in reporting child
abuse, Drake argued that the main problem
‘Mitigating poverty, and the
effects of poverty, would be the
most powerful way to reduce
child maltreatment’
they are disproportionately at risk for being
mislabeled as guilty of neglect. “To know
where the class bias leaves off and the racial
bias begins, it’s necessary to use methods
that control for poverty,” said Wexler. He
noted that studies conducted by the NCCPR
has shown that caseworkers are more likely
to describe a child as “at risk” when the
family is Black.
Wexler asked: “Why do these distin-
guished researchers believe that the bias
that still is part of every facet of American
life somehow disappears at the child wel-
fare agency door, or the office of a doctor or
some other mandated reporter of child
abuse?” While acknowledging that he has
seen improvement in attitudes about pover-
ty and child protection, Wexler said the fact
remains that so many are willing to “cop to
class bias rather than be accused of racial
bias is at least a small step in the right direc-
tion.”
The Washington University study also
concluded that the rate of abuse among
Hispanic children was proportionately high-
er than that of Whites but lower than that of
Blacks. Researchers call it the “Hispanic
Paradox.” So why is it that Hispanics, who
suffer high poverty rates and poor access to
health care, have fewer numbers of child
abuse cases?
Researchers explain that the answer may
lie in cultural factors. Drake and others
have explained that Hispanic communities
tend to be more child-centered and have
stricter mores against the maltreatment of
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april 13, 2011 The Seattle Skanner Page 5