A story on MSNBC reports the following:

A massive new federal study documents an unprecedented and dramatic decrease in incidents of serious child abuse, especially sexual abuse. Experts hailed the findings as proof that crackdowns and public awareness campaigns had made headway.

An estimated 553,000 children suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse in 2005-06, down 26 percent from the estimated 743,200 abuse victims in 1993, the study found....

Finkelhor [the study's author], whose own previous research detected a drop in abuse rates, said the study reveals "real, substantial declines" that cannot be dismissed on any technical grounds, such as changing definitions of abuse.

He suggested that the decline was a product of several coinciding trends, including a "troop surge" in the 1990s when more people were deployed in child protection services and the criminal justice system intensified its anti-abuse efforts with more arrests and prison sentences.