Male Victims of Sexual Abuse: An Analysis of Substantiation of Child Protective Services Reports

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research seeks to understand why reports involving female victims of sexual abuse are substantiated at a significantly higher rate than reports involving male victims. Both descriptive analyses of the child, case, and investigatory process variables in the Child Protective Services (CPS) reports and a discriminant function analysis (done separately for male and female victims) to identify which variables distinguish between substantiated and unsubstantiated reports find relatively few differences. Female victims are older and these reports are more likely to come from mandated reporters whereas reports involving male victims are more likely to come from an anonymous reporter. Given the greater reliability of reports from mandated reporters and the difficulty of investigating a report from an anonymous source, we suggest that educating mandated reporters about the signs of sexual abuse in male children may result in more reports from mandated reporters and consequently in a higher substantiation rate.