Initial findings
Note: The following are preliminary findings from an ongoing analysis of quantitative and qualitative data in the HIC database. A full report will be published in Summer 2024.
Key takeaways
The database contains over 400 cases of child abuse and neglect from 47 US states and Washington, D.C. Right now, we can’t make any conclusions about the relationship between state case numbers and state populations or policy provisions, but we are collecting additional data to learn more.
We have recorded 211 fatalities of homeschooled children, and most of these deaths occurred after the year 2000. The average age of a fatality victim is about 10 years old, and the gap between numbers of male and female victims is smaller than expected. We need to conduct further analysis to explore trends in age and gender more thoroughly.
We compared our number of fatalities from 2000-2019 to national child fatality rates, and found that the number of fatalities of homeschooled children was higher than what we would expect if we assume the rate of fatal abuse is the same as it is for the general population. The difference was statistically significant, but we need further research to examine the relationship more, and to determine underlying causes.
Perpetrators can have a variety of relationships to victims, but the most common relationship is parent (biological, adoptive, or stepparent) or caregiver (foster parent or guardian). At least one perpetrator is a parent or caregiver in 92.8% of all cases, and 98.2% of fatality cases. Though these numbers are concerning, we need to examine our inclusion criteria and qualitative data to understand why this is the case.
In a wide majority of cases in the database, homeschooled children were subjected to abuse that extended beyond one incident. Because abusive homeschool environments are often isolated, homeschooled children can be particularly vulnerable to forms of abuse like food deprivation, imprisonment, and medical neglect.
Cases
Overview and limitations
The Homeschooling’s Invisible Database tracks incidents of severe, sometimes fatal abuse and neglect in homeschool settings. These incidents took place in the time period ranging from the mass legalization of homeschool in the 1980s until the present. We draw information on all the incidents included in the database from publicly accessible documents, such as media reports and court proceedings. This is currently our best option for data collection because school status is not recorded in official child welfare reports from state or national bodies. As a result, the database is not comprehensive, nor is it representative of all occurrences of abuse in homeschool settings.
While this limits us from making definitive comparative claims or from conducting causal analysis, the database is a large, rich dataset that shows how abuse can materialize in homeschooling environments, and how gaps in homeschooling laws can contribute to devastating outcomes for children.
Inclusion criteria
All cases in HIC must meet the following criteria.
The incident details are recorded in publicly accessible documents, such as media reports and court proceedings.
As we discussed above, this makes it difficult for us to know whether our cases are nationally representative.
The incident occurred in the United States.
We have recorded 23 international cases that are excluded from all analyses.
At least one victim is a school-aged, homeschooled child.
We include 5 year olds and 18 year olds if reports explicitly state that they are being homeschooled. In quantitative analyses, however, we follow Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau reports and only count 6-17 year old victims as school-aged.
We count victims as “homeschooled” if they are legally homeschooled, or if their parents, guardians, caregivers, or captors claimed to be homeschooling them when the incident occurred. We intentionally include families that claimed to be homeschooling but were not following their state’s homeschool requirements. One reason for this decision is that, in most US states, lack of enforcement allows parents to homeschool “under the radar,” and that lack of enforcement is a problem that needs addressing. We hope to shed light on that problem. A second reason is that homeschooling still serves to shield abuse and neglect in these families because friends and neighbors who might otherwise have called the family in for truancy will be less likely to do so if the family claims to be homeschooling.
The incident involved either persistent abuse or neglect and/or the fatality of a homeschooled child.
Fatality cases follow broader inclusion criteria than non-fatality cases. While homeschooling played a direct or indirect role in many of fatality cases, to date, we have archived all cases of non-accidental child fatality in homeschool settings regardless of the role played by homeschooling. Our goal, thus far, has been to collect comprehensive data on non-accidental child fatalities in homeschool settings so that we can locate common themes. Now that our dataset is sufficiently large, we have begun examining themes, and will adjust inclusion criteria accordingly. Our annual report will break down cases by cause and relationship to homeschooling.
Case numbers by US state
The table below shows number of cases in the database by US state alongside population rank, which was calculated using 2010 Census values for school-aged children as a benchmark. Some states, like Missouri, are over-represented in case numbers relative to their population rank, while states like New York are under-represented. However, because the database is not representative, we cannot conclude that this is because Missouri has a higher abuse rate for homeschooled children than New York (because we might have missed cases from states like New York such that Missouri’s share looks bigger than it actually is). Even if we could establish that, we could not speculate as to why without further evidence and testing.
Since we are interested in exploring questions of differences in outcomes between states, we are displaying the information here and will continue to update state data as we continue our analysis.
| State | Cases | Population rank |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | 38 | 4 |
| California | 32 | 1 |
| Texas | 32 | 2 |
| Ohio | 25 | 7 |
| Georgia | 22 | 8 |
| Pennsylvania | 21 | 6 |
| Missouri | 19 | 18 |
| Colorado | 17 | 22 |
| Tennessee | 17 | 16 |
| North Carolina | 16 | 10 |
| Arizona | 15 | 14 |
| Oklahoma | 15 | 27 |
| Wisconsin | 15 | 20 |
| Indiana | 14 | 13 |
| Michigan | 11 | 9 |
| Washington | 11 | 15 |
| Multistate | 10 | NA |
| Oregon | 10 | 28 |
| Illinois | 9 | 5 |
| New Jersey | 8 | 11 |
| Alaska | 7 | 47 |
| Iowa | 7 | 32 |
| Maryland | 7 | 19 |
| Minnesota | 7 | 21 |
| New York | 7 | 3 |
| Idaho | 6 | 38 |
| Kansas | 6 | 33 |
| New Mexico | 6 | 36 |
| Utah | 6 | 30 |
| Arkansas | 5 | 34 |
| Hawaii | 5 | 40 |
| Kentucky | 5 | 26 |
| Massachusetts | 5 | 17 |
| Connecticut | 4 | 29 |
| Louisiana | 4 | 24 |
| South Carolina | 4 | 25 |
| Virginia | 4 | 12 |
| Alabama | 3 | 23 |
| Nebraska | 3 | 37 |
| New Hampshire | 3 | 41 |
| West Virginia | 3 | 39 |
| Montana | 2 | 44 |
| Nevada | 2 | 35 |
| Wyoming | 2 | 50 |
| Delaware | 1 | 45 |
| District of Columbia | 1 | 51 |
| Mississippi | 1 | 31 |
| North Dakota | 1 | 48 |
| Maine | 0 | 42 |
| South Dakota | 0 | 46 |
| Vermont | 0 | 49 |
Fatalities
Fatalities overview
We have identified 211 non-accidental deaths of homeschooled children, with the majority of these (191, 90.5%) occurring from 2000 to the present. Total fatalities tally to 283 when we account for the non-accidental deaths of adults and homeschooled children.
We have recorded 211 fatalities of homeschooled children.
Age and gender
The average age of a fatality victim is 10.4 years old, which is roughly what we would expect, since victims must be between 5 and 18 years old to be included. Boys accounted for 112 deaths (53.1%), and girls 99 (46.9%). In the United States, boys have higher child death rates than girls across all age brackets and causes, including death by child maltreatment. In the latest Child Maltreatment report, for example, boys accounted for 60.3% of fatalities, and girls only 39.7%.
Only nationally representative data could settle the question of whether fatality rates by gender differ for homeschooled children, but the fact that more girls than we would have expected are represented in our database warrants further investigation, including qualitative analysis of how ideology and identity-based abuse take shape across cases.
Fatality rate
We compared HIC fatality rates from 2000-2019 with national child fatality rates reported by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau and our best estimates of the national homeschooled population from the National Center for Education Statistics. Based on such national data, we would expect to observe about 129 fatalities of homeschooled children aged 6-17 between 2000-2019. We have recorded 155 fatalities in our database from that time period. Moreover, given that public documents do not always indicate school status in reportage on child deaths, it is also possible that the number of actual homeschool fatalities in this time period was higher than 155.
The difference between our observed rate and the expected rate is statistically significant (p =.018).
Our analysis relies on a lot of assumptions, and further evidence and statistical testing are needed to determine the cause of this discrepancy. However, in our view, these preliminary findings demonstrate the urgency of state and national bodies including school status in data collection to examine the relationship between school status and fatality further.
Perpetrators
We follow the US Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau in defining a perpetrator as an adult who causes abuse and neglect or knowingly allows abuse to continue. Also following their protocols, we count biological, adoptive, and stepparents as parents. We define a caregiver as a parent, a foster parent, or a legal guardian. Due to coding difficulties, cases that involved cults, high control groups, or polygamy were given their own category and excluded from analysis of perpetrator data.
The table below shows the breakdown of categories.
| Perpetrator category | Cases | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Two parents | 221 | 46.53% |
| Mother alone | 67 | 14.11% |
| Father alone | 35 | 7.37% |
| One parent and partner | 25 | 5.26% |
| Two parents and at least one adult | 23 | 4.84% |
| Cult, high control group, or polygamy | 20 | 4.21% |
| Two foster parents, guardians, or caregivers | 19 | 4.00% |
| Other | 18 | 3.79% |
| One parent and at least one adult | 16 | 3.37% |
| Homeschool teacher | 13 | 2.74% |
| One foster parent, guardian, or caregiver | 8 | 1.68% |
| One parent, partner, and at least one adult | 5 | 1.05% |
| Two foster parents, guardians, or caregivers and at least one adult | 3 | 0.63% |
| One foster parent, guardian, or caregiver and at least one adult | 2 | 0.42% |
| Total | 475 | 100% |
In most cases, at least one parent is involved in the abuse. The percentage becomes even higher when we consider cases in which at least one caregiver was involved. While these numbers are concerning, further analysis is needed to determine what they tell us beyond reflecting our inclusion criteria: chronic abuse of homeschooled children almost by definition is committed by caregivers in the home environment.
86.6% of all cases.
92.8% of all cases.
94.5% of fatality cases.
98.2% of fatality cases.
Patterns in abuse
Extent of abuse
Over the first decade of maintaining the database, we deliberately set broad criteria for including cases in HIC, especially fatality cases. We did this so that we could create a large evidence base for examining the interconnections between abuse, neglect, and homeschooling. This meant including cases in which the case’s relationship to homeschool and homeschooling policy may be indirect; for example, we have included family annihilation incidents, in which the cause of a parent’s seemingly sudden decision to kill their family members is often unknown.
Even with the inclusion of these cases, at least 88% of cases involved abuse or neglect that extended beyond the incident. The remaining 12% includes family annihilation incidents, some abductions, and cases for which we, due to lack of evidence, cannot presently confirm extended abuse took place, but we have good reason to expect it did. The deaths of Timothy Boss and Tyler Gene McMillan are examples of this sort of case.
Further analysis is needed to capture trends in severity and timeline among the 88% cases involving extended abuse and neglect. All, however, involved severe abuse and neglect that was not localized to a single incident.
Forms of abuse
In an exploratory analysis of trends in HIC cases, we identified five forms of abuse that are prominent throughout the database. These categories are food deprivation, imprisonment, medical neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. Future analysis will provide more detail on these patterns as abuse, as well as their relationship to other factors like whether a child was withdrawn from school, adoption status, or prior social service history.
| Category | Percentage of cases |
|---|---|
| Food Deprivation | 49.47% |
| Imprisonment | 43.58% |
| Medical Neglect | 28.00% |
| Physical Abuse | 62.11% |
| Sexual Abuse | 24.42% |
Note: the accordion below contains information on each form of abuse, and includes descriptions of child abuse, torture, and death.
Food deprivation
Children homeschooled by abusive parents have died of starvation or been found so malnourished that their growth is permanently and significantly stunted. Food deprivation, moreover, is intentional, which distinguishes it from conditions caused by poverty like malnutrition. A common trend across food deprivation cases is parents putting locks or alarms on their refrigerator or kitchen cupboards to prevent children from eating.
Food deprivation is a form of abuse to which homeschooled children are particularly vulnerable. Teachers are trained to notice and report children who are constantly hungry, and free lunch programs provide needed sustenance for children who might otherwise go without food. It would be difficult for children attending public school to be starved by their parents, but the same is not true for homeschooled children.
Imprisonment
Homeschooling gives abusive parents the ability to confine their children permanently. There are stories of homeschooled children locked in cages, forced to wear shock collars, or bound with zip-ties. There are stories of homeschooled children chained to their beds, severely malnourished, and starved to death. Physical restraint becomes a means to intimidate and control.
In some cases children have been kept in cages at night, locked in their rooms with a bucket to relieve themselves, imprisoned in a bathroom for months, or allowed out of their rooms for only one meal each day. When it comes to physical confinement, abused homeschooled children are at the mercy of their parents.
Medical neglect
In medical neglect cases, homeschool parents deprive their children of medical care, often because they are opposed to modern medicine altogether. Some believe in faith healing, or practice unassisted home births. In some cases this can have devastating consequences, leaving a child with otherwise preventable lifelong health problems. The results are sometimes fatal.
Homeschooled children are particularly vulnerable to medical neglect. Without a school requesting medical records, there is nothing to ensure that homeschooled children visit a doctor, and some may go their entire childhoods without once being examined by a medical professional. Additionally, as medical neglect progresses, the signs are often noticeable physically. The isolation characteristic of abusive homeschool settings is necessary for medical neglect to persist and worsen.
Physical abuse
Abusive parents who homeschool their children don’t have to worry about a teacher noticing or reporting their children’s bruises or other physical manifestations of abuse. This allows them to push farther and abuse their children in more extreme ways than they might otherwise. A number of young adults who were homeschooled and later placed in school have recounted that their parents’ abuse toned down when they ceased homeschooling because they were aware their abuse could be seen and reported if they went too far. In most cases of abuse in homeschooling situations, children were physically abused before being homeschooled, but for many their withdrawal from school marked the beginning of a new phase in their abuse as their parents found they could abuse without restraint.
Some children have suffered physical abuse at the hands of Christian homeschooling parents espousing what they argued was “biblical” discipline. In some extreme cases, homeschooling parents have become convinced that their children are possessed by demons, and in other cases homeschooled children have led a life of severe punishment for small infractions after their parents unfairly determined that they were “rebellious.”
Sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a tragedy that can happen to children regardless of school status. Sexual abuse in homeschooling situations, however, is compounded by the fact that children homeschooled by sexually abusive parents do not have access to age-appropriate sex education that might give them the tools needed to understand and report their own abuse. In some especially isolated families, incest and rape takes place without the children understanding that what is happening is wrong.
In other cases, children know that what is happening to them is very wrong and want it to stop, but lack access to trusted adults who might be able to help them. When sexually abused children are homeschooled by their abuser, they may literally have no place of escape. In some cases, they may die by suicide.
Homeschooled children who suffer from sexual abuse are often hindered both by their own ignorance and by their lack of contact with individuals they can trust.
