PHILADELPHIA -- Despite predictions to the contrary, the incidence of child abuse did not rise with the implementation of welfare reform.

After analyzing data from a number of national sources on child abuse and neglect, Richard J. Gelles, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania, concluded that, not only did maltreatment of children in the United States not increase after the 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the opposite happened.

"All the doomsday scenarios predicting that families, and especially children, would be direct victims of this legislation just didn't happen," Gelles said.

Among the data sources Gelles used in his research were the National Incidence Survey of Reported and Recognized Child Maltreatment, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, Prevent Child Abuse America Reports from the States and the State Automated Child Welfare Information System.

The rate of confirmed child maltreatment, according to the NCANDS data, increased from 1990 to 1993, decreased slightly between 1993 and 1996 and then declined steeply between 1996 and 1999 before increasing again in 2000.  Reports of child abuse and neglect have stabilized at about 3 million children per year.

 Gelles also looked at child fatalities and the number of children in foster care before and after welfare reform was enacted.

The NCANDS found child-abuse fatalities to be 935 in 1996 and at 1,201 in 2000 but suggests that the increase in reported deaths appeared to result from increased reporting from sources other than child welfare agencies, such as coroners' offices.

According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, about 560,000 children were in foster care in 1998, increasing to 581,000 in 1999; however, in September 2002 the number of children in out-of-home care decreased to 556,000.

"This was the first time in two decades that the foster-care population decreased," Gelles said.

New data also suggest that adoptions from foster care have increased from a stable 22,000 through 1996 to 36,000 in 1998 and to 51,000 in 2000, he said.

Gelles cautioned against accepting the data at face because "states differ widely on the legal definitions of child abuse, standards for screening reports vary, data management information systems vary and the data themselves are subject to inaccuracies."

He also noted that the country as a whole lacks a reliable means of measuring child maltreatment and tracking the children through the myriad services and placements within the child-welfare system nationally.

Despite these caveats, Gelles said, "no evidence indicates that welfare-reform legislation has produced an increase or decrease in child-maltreatment reports, child-abuse and neglect fatalities or the number of children placed in foster care."

"Meanwhile, welfare roles went down and stayed down during bad economic times, out-of-wedlock births dropped precipitously and the crime rate decreased," Gelles said.  "If the 'evils' of welfare reform didn't come to pass, maybe we should take a look at the 'good' that welfare reform may have produced."

Gelles is director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Youth Policy and Center for Children's Policy, Practice and Research as well as author of "The Violent Home," "The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives" and "Intimate Violence in Families."