Child Maltreatment Reporting in the General Population: Examining the Roles of Community, Collective Efficacy, and Adverse Childhood Experiences

Background and Purpose: Many children experiencing maltreatment are not referred into the social service system, while others not experiencing maltreatment are investigated. Better understanding of factors associated with likelihood of reporting or intervening against maltreatment in the general population could inform efforts to make reporting of suspected maltreatment more sensitive and specific in order to better protect children.

According to bystander theory, factors such as the community environment, collective efficacy, and history of adverse childhood experiences could be related to likelihood of reporting or intervening against maltreatment. We used hypothetical vignettes and a randomized experimental design to assess the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, community context, collective efficacy, and self-reported likelihood of intervening in a case of potential physical abuse.

Methods: An online survey was conducted with 946 general population Californians obtained through mixed-mode random probability and quota-based recruitment methods. Using an experimental vignette design, participants were randomly assigned to two scenarios: a) potential child abuse occurring in their neighborhood; b) potential child abuse in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Weighted multivariate logistic regression models assessed relationships between the vignette condition, collective efficacy, adverse childhood experiences, appraisal of the behavior, and likelihood of reporting or intervening, while controlling for demographic characteristics.

Results: When presented a vignette of a potentially abusive situation in public approximately 25% of respondents indicated a willingness to either call CPS or intervene personally even though 85% of respondents felt that the discipline described was inappropriate and 50% of respondents felt that it was abusive. Multivariate results suggested that perceiving the vignette as occurring in your own neighborhood was associated with higher odds of viewing the behavior as appropriate and lower odds of considering it abusive. Higher collective efficacy scores were associated with both higher odds of viewing the incident as appropriate and personally intervening. Adverse childhood experiences were positively related to reporting the incident to child protective services and intervening.

Conclusions and Implications: Our findings suggest a continuing disconnect between perceiving parenting behaviors negatively and willingness to act in protection of children, as a majority of respondents believed that reporting the incident would make the situation worse for the child. This could suggest negative beliefs about systems designed to protect children or ignorance about CPS. In addition, bystanders may be more likely to give parents in their own neighborhood "the benefit of the doubt" by viewing their abusive behaviors as less severe, potentially leading to underreporting. Neighborhood collective efficacy might increase willingness to personally intervene, but not contact systems such as child protective services or police, suggesting that enhanced trust in communities does not extend to these institutions. Finally, individuals who experienced poor parenting and violence may be more likely to empathize with child victims, and thus intervene to protect them. Our findings have implications for neighborhood and education interventions to enhance understanding of and willingness to intervene on behalf of children.