(Des Moines)– Reports of child abuse in Iowa dropped slightly in 2002 after reaching record levels the year before.
A report by the non-profit group Prevent Child Abuse Iowa shows there were about 12-thousand-300 confirmed cases of child abuse last year.
There were nearly 12-thousand-800 such cases in 2001.
The report used statistics released by the Iowa Department of Human Services.
D-H-S official Vern Armstrong says the largest number of abused children were victims of denial of care.
That includes a lack of adequate housing, food or clothing, or the lack of adequate supervision.
The decrease in confirmed abuse cases last year comes after a sharp increase in reports in 2000 and 2001.
Locally, there were 94 confirmed cases of child abuse last year in Emmet county; Clay county had 123; Palo Alto 59; Dickinson had 81; Osceola 61; and O’Brien county had 38 confirmed child abuse cases in 2002.
On a per capita basis, Emmet county was ranked third in the state for the number of confirmed child abuse cases per one thousand people at 35.15. Clay county was eighth at 28.68; Palo Alto county was ranked 11th at 24.18 and Dickinson county was 14th at 22.51.
(Some of the information in this story was supplied by the Associated Press).
