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The
price of child abuse in Wisconsin - the $673.3 million band aid
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Wisconsin’s
price tag for treating and protecting abused and neglected children is
staggering. According to an updated cost-analysis released
in March 2005 by the
Children’s Trust Fund, child abuse and neglect costs Wisconsin more than
$673.3
million a year or $1.8 million a day.
“When
compiling our cost analysis, we used conservative estimates,” Norma Sampson,
Communications Director of the Children's Trust Fund, says. “Wisconsin spends about
$8.07 million annually to protect our
children from abuse and neglect and 83 times as much—$673.3 million—to repair
the damage done by abuse and neglect.”
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40,473
children were reported abused and neglected in 2003 in Wisconsin...that's
about the same as the population of Brookfield, Wausau, or Fond du Lac and
would fill more than half of the seats in Camp Randall Stadium.
For more
information, see the 2003 Child Abuse and Neglect Report.
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The Children’s Trust
Fund updated its January 2002 cost analysis that used various sources
of data—everything from hospitalization and juvenile justice to loss of
productivity in the workplace. Many of the Wisconsin figures come from a
Legislative Fiscal Bureau study that the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention (CANP)
Board's Legislative Committee requested in 2001.
New
this year is a section on the Children's Trust Fund's budget
requests contained in Assembly Bill 100, the 2005-2007 biennial budget. For
the first time in 10 years, the Children's Trust Fund is asking for an increase
in its major source of revenue -- the duplicate birth certificate fee.
"Sufficient
funds have not been allocated to prevent the abuse and neglect of our
children," Sampson says. “Prevention
programs will save Wisconsin dollars in the long run. Studies show that family
support centers yield a payback of about $7 for every $1 invested.”
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The
updated cost analysis is part of an
informational packet prepared by the Children's Trust Fund for state
legislators in March 2005. All of the materials are
available as PDFs to view or download:
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Dollars
and sense
- Cost analysis,
family support centers save 7 times their cost, and 12 deaths from child abuse costs
Wisconsin about $.5 million in lost tax revenue
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The
problem
- Moments in Wisconsin in
2003 and other child abuse
and neglect statistics
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Invest
in prevention - More funds are needed to prevent child
maltreatment, the Children's Trust Fund's 2005-2007 budget requests,
and more
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Strengthening
families
- What is a family resource center, a list of
Wisconsin family resource centers and support programs funded by the
Children's Trust Fund, and family success stories
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Statute
revisions
- Proposed
legislative bill AB262 expands the Child Abuse
and Neglect Prevention Board and strengthen the Celebrate Children
Foundation
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Overview
- The prevention pulse of Wisconsin, the Children's Trust Fund has
been keeping children safe and families strong for more than 20 years
To
view and print the PDFs, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on
your computer. This application is available to download free of charge by
following the link at Get
Acrobat Reader.
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