Reducing Underresponding: Improving System Response to Mandated Reporters.(Reannouncement with New Availability Information)

摘要

The fact that the child protective services (CPS) system in this country isseverely overburdened is hardly news. Nor is it news that as a direct consequence of this situation, CPS agencies cannot respond as they might like to many reports. Critics of the reporting system argue that steady declines in substantiation rates are signposts that the system is over-extended. Low substantiation rates mean that many families endure intrusive and traumatic investigations that lead nowhere, and that increasing numbers of reports describe situations that do not constitute maltreatment. These problems, critics claim, are evidence of the need to narrow the reporting mandate and decrease the number of reports (e.g., Besharov, 1985, 1986). Using available empirical data, Finkelhor (1990) effectively refutes each of these points. He finds that substantiation rates have not declined nationally, and indeed, may be increasing.