Justice Department Study Reveals School Officials More Likely to Learn of Child Victimization

Washington, DC

According to the research, school officials knew about victimization episodes more often (42 percent) than police (13 percent) or medical personnel (2 percent). Police were the most likely to know about kidnapping, neglect and sexual abuse by an adult. School, police and medical authorities knew about a majority of serious victimizations, including incidents of sexual abuse by an adult, gang assaults and kidnappings, but were mostly unaware of other kinds of serious victimizations, such as dating violence, rape and attempted rape.