On 1 Sep 2003, Cathy Weeks wrote:

(Greg Hanson) wrote in message . com...

By the way, your hunch is wrong about blood parents being
the child abusers statistically. So much so that CPS here
tried to make removal automatic if Single mom's had a man
move in. Based on the STATS about non-relatives perpetrating.
The STATS say the opposite of what your hunch.

Yeah? Want to post them? Sources? And an anti-CPS website isn't a
reliable source.

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01


USA Today, 10/20/98

SAN FRANCISCO. A child's chances of dying from abuse or neglect are eight
times higher when a biologically unrelated adult, usually a boyfriend, lives
in the home, and six times greater with a stepfather present, suggests a
study out Monday.

The three-year report is among the first to compare the home lives of children
killed by maltreatment with those of a control group (youngsters who died of
natural causes).

The study involved 175 Missouri kids, every state resident under 5 who died of
maltreatment over three years, and 296 randomly selected youngsters who died
from natural causes.

Despite the higher risk for kids living with unrelated adults, baby sitters
weren't the problem. "There was only one confirmed case of a baby sitter
involved," says St. Paul, Minn., family physician Michael Stiffman, the study
director. He reported at the American Academy of Pediatrics meeting here.

The national figures on child maltreatment deaths are comparatively small: Of
19.3 million kids under 5 in 1996, an estimated 924 died from abuse or
neglect. And in the new study, two-thirds of fatal maltreatment happened in
homes with only biological parents.

The findings confirm smaller, uncontrolled studies, says David Finkelhor of
the Crimes Against Children Research Center at University of New Hampshire in
Durham.

Live-in male companions could see a woman's kids as rivals, he says. "Why
haven't the women married these guys? It could be a sign of an unstable
relationship with more stress."

Some experts think biologically rooted impulses help account for abuse by
unrelated men. In some primate tribes, "one of the first things a newly
dominant male does is kill the offspring of the female he's going to mate
with," says Richard Gelles, a family violence specialist at the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Substance abuse, violent men and young mothers are common features of homes
with severe child abuse, says Deborah Daro of the National Committee to
Prevent Child Abuse. "Boyfriends may be a proxy for lots of other factors.
There's nothing wrong with a boyfriend or stepfather in the home. It's what
kind of person he is that counts."

Doan