83 percent of child abuse and neglect cases are from families on benefit

Thanks to Brendan for alerting me to the fact that 83 percent of child abuse and neglect cases are from families on welfare. That's according to Professor Rhema Vaithianathan interviewed for Radio NZ lunchtime news.

I returned to the study cited this morning to see how that percentage compared to 1994-5. Information held in the CYF computer was compared to that held in the Social Welfare system. A 'match' indicated the subject of the care and protection order had a caregiver with a Social Welfare Number (SWN).

Table 1 Matched Cases Between SWIFT and SWis Systems

	Care and Protection		Youth Justice
Match/No Match	Number	Per cent	Number	Per cent
Match, with SWN	236	79	256	85
Match, but no SWN	10	3	7	2
No Match	54	18	37	12
TOTAL	300	100	300	99*

So 82 percent of the Care and protection cases involved a caregiver (usually mother) who had a SWN.

However, "In a substantial minority of these matches, 107 cases (36%) in the care and protection sample and 80 cases (27%) in the youth justice sample, no current income-tested benefit was being paid nor was there a benefit paid over the 1994-95 period."

This would drop the percentage significantly.

So I'm still keen to know what the source is for the Professor's claim. Some questions I think.

UPDATE. I have been in touch with the Professor who has very quickly responded and provided a link to their study. Here is the exact wording:   "Of all children having a finding of maltreatment by age 5, 83% are seen on a benefit before age 2, translating into a
very high “capture” rate."