Barth and Senior Child Welfare Scientists Publish on Race/Ethnicity and CWS Trends
Richard Barth is part of a multi-authored paper led by Brett Drake published in Child Maltreatment that examines child abuse reporting, substantiation, and out-of-home placement rates from 2005 through 2019. Differences between rates for Black and White children were never very large. Descriptive and multivariate analyses of data from the past several years indicated that Black children were less likely to be substantiated or placed into out-of-home care following a report than White children. Hispanic children were slightly more likely to be substantiated or placed in out-of-home care than White children overall, but this difference disappeared in multivariate models. Available data provide no evidence that Black children were overreported relative to observed risks and harms reflected in non-CPS data. Reducing reporting rates among Black children will require addressing broader conditions associated with maltreatment. The findings rebut the rhetoric of the abolitionist argument. Massive improvements in CWS are still needed and should be based on rigorous research.