Why Don’t Some People Report Child Abuse and Neglect?
The reasons for the under reporting are a mixture of the obvious and the not so obvious. It’s obvious that victims almost never tell people about their abuse. They have very reasonable and rational fears of retaliation, as well as more complicated emotional reasons for not reporting. Victims of abuse often deny abuse even after it has been reported. It’s also obvious that it can be hard to tell if an injury is a result of abuse or a result of an honest accident. Still, given the number of people who are required to report abuse, it would seem that fewer children would fall through the cracks of the system. Among the most frequently identified reasons for not reporting are lack of knowledge about child abuse and neglect and lack of familiarity with state reporting laws.
