© British Association of Social Workers
Children's Homicide as an Indicator of Effective Child Protection: A Comparative Study of Western European Statistics
Colin Pritchard is Professor of Social Work Studies at the University of Southampton. He trained at the University of Manchester as a Psychiatric Social Worker, an area in which he still practises. Following appointments at the Universities of Leeds and Bath, he went to Southampton in 1980. With Alan Butler he co-authored Social Work & Mental Illness (Macmillan) and with Michael Kerfoot they are currently working on a new edition. He has developed an epidemiological approach to social problems especially the interface between suicide and unemployment, and psychiatry and child care.
Correspondence to Colin Pritchard, Professor of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO9 5NH.
Summary
It is known that the extreme consequence of child abuse is a dead child. Attempts to determine the success of services to prevent child abuse and subsequent deaths confront the problems inherent in trying to prove a negative. The use of an epidemiological approach resolves some of the methodological problems by measuring ‘failure’ to protect in an examination of children's homicides rates over time.
Between 1973 and 1988 it was found that there was a substantial reduction in baby homicides in England and Wales, equivalent to a fall of 61 per cent and a 57 per cent reduction in Scotland. In a comparison with the other fifteen Western European countries, England and Wales topped the league of improvements in children's homicide, and Scotland was fourth. Such improvements suggest advances by the child protection services. Explanations for the positive British results are considered.