Police Involvement in Child Maltreatment Investigations in Ontario In 2018

The Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect 2018 (OIS-2018)1 is the sixth provincial study to examine the incidence of reported child maltreatment and the characteristics of children and families investigated by child welfare authorities in Ontario. This Information Sheet examines police involvement among investigations of maltreatment.

Police involvement was measured in two ways in the OIS-2018. First, police referral was identified based on whether the worker endorsed police as a referral source for the investigation. Second, workers described the level of police involvement related to each investigated type of maltreatment. The police involvement question had four response options: none, investigation, charges, and unknown. For the purposes of this analysis, this question was recoded into a binary variable of “police investigation” (investigation and charges) vs. “no police investigation” (none and unknown) for the primary maltreatment type. We then combined the two police involvement questions to derive a four category variable: no police involvement, police referral only, police investigation only, and police referral and police investigation. We compared these categories across child age, caregiver characteristics, and primary form of investigated maltreatment.