May 5, 2003, 10:29PM

Victims of child abuse more likely to turn to crime

Study urges prevention funds
By JONATHAN D. SALANT
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Children who are abused or neglected are far more
likely to become criminals as adults, according to a study released
Monday by an organization of police chiefs, prosecutors and crime
victims.
The report by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids recommends more money for
pre-kindergarten programs and parenting classes, saying the cost will
be offset later when children who might have been burdens on society
grow up to be upstanding citizens.
"Children who survive abuse and neglect can be significantly
injured," said one of the report's authors, Dr. Randell Alexander,
director of the Center for Child Abuse at the Morehouse School of
Medicine in Atlanta. "Many go on to hurt others. If you are born into
a world of violence, you wire yourself for violence, not for peace."
Using various federal data and academic and advocacy group studies,
researchers said child abuse and neglect is vastly underreported.
The 900,000 cases reported annually by the Health and Human Services
Department may be only one-third of the actual total, the report said.
The report cited a study published in 2000 by Dr. Cathy Spatz Widom,
a professor of criminal justice and psychology at the State
University of New York at Albany, that found individuals who had been
abused or neglected as youngsters were 29 percent more likely to
become violent criminals.
Using that estimate, researchers said 36,000 of the 900,000 children
cited in the HHS report will become violent criminals when they reach
adulthood, including 250 who will become killers.
The report's authors include four local prosecutors and two sheriffs.
They said the findings illustrate the need for more federal funds for
pre-kindergarten programs and parenting classes for families
considered high-risk for child abuse, primarily those on welfare or
headed by high school dropouts.
The 1996 welfare overhaul bill earmarked $2.8 billion for the states
under a social services block grant, but congressional Republicans
cut funding to $1.7 billion in the current budget year.
David Landefeld, the Republican district attorney for Fairfield
County, Ohio, said crime connected to child abuse costs Americans $50
billion a year -- 50 times the amount of money cut from the social
services block grant.
HHS officials said it was up to Congress to decide whether to provide
the money.
In Elmira, N.Y., a parenting program for single, poor mothers reduced
incidents of child abuse or neglect to one-fifth of what they had
been. In Chicago, a combination of parenting classes and
pre-kindergarten cut cases of abuse and neglect in half, according to
the report.
"It is possible to prevent child abuse and neglect instead of waiting
for the next horror story to occur," said Brooklyn, N.Y., District
Attorney Charles Hynes.
Brendina Tobias of Newport News, Va., is a social worker whose son
was killed in New York in 1993 while walking to a restaurant to get
food for his elderly grandmother. The killers had been neglected as
children and learned to take whatever they wanted to survive, Tobias
said.
"Abuse and neglect can be prevented," Tobias said. "Maybe my son
would still be alive."

On the Internet: Fight Crime: Invest in Kids: www.fightcrime.org
Widom study: www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/jr000242b.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1897513
_______________________________________________
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit
research and educational purposes only.
_______________________________________________