Child Abuse Increasingly Reported in Chester County: DA

More and more people are coming forward in Chester County to report child abuse, the District Attorney's Office confirms.

A total of 1,681 child abuse cases were reported to authorities in 2016, as compared to just 291 in 2013. The 2016 number is up from 1,306 in 2015, which had grown exponentially from 414 in 2014, according to statistics provided by the county.

District Attorney Tom Hogan attributes the rise to recent changes in state law.

"With the change in Pennsylvania laws regarding mandatory reporting of child abuse after the Sandusky case, we expected to see an increase," Hogan said. "The spike mirrors increases across the Commonwealth. More cases are being reported and the District Attorney's Child Abuse Unit has grown in size and sophistication in order to address the new case load."

The DA's office said that the Unit receives reports from various agencies, including the state's Department of Public Welfare and the county's Department of Children, Youth, and Families.

The DA's office employs specially trained detectives to investigate reports. Interviews with children are done in the DA's Children's Advocacy Center. With the increase in reports, there has also been an increase in interviews: 2016 saw 358 interviews, versus 251 in 2015.

The Child Abuse Unit now includes four prosecutors and four detectives.

Lead image via Patch file photo