Almost half of U.S. youth who experience violence, abuse or
crime have had at least one of their victimisations known to
school, police or medical authorities, according to a report in
the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
'Childhood/adolescent abuse is frequently described as a hidden
problem, and victimisation studies regularly have shown that
much abuse goes undisclosed,' the authors write as background
information in the article. 'The hidden nature of childhood
victimisation has multiple sources. Clearly, children and
adolescents are easily intimidated by offenders and fear
retaliation. However, families, children and adolescents often
wish to deal with crime and victimisation informally. They
sometimes fear the consequences of disclosure to authorities in
the form of interviews and police and court involvement. In
other cases, they do not perceive that victimisations as
something that would be of interest to authorities.' To obtain
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