Analyzing Lauren Kavanaugh's 'The Girl In The Closet'

“I just knew the phone would ring some day and Joshua would be dead,” stated social worker Ann Kemmeter regarding Joshua DeShaney and the ongoing abuse he endured from his father. Joshua’s father brutally and repeatedly abused his four-year-old son Joshua (Wichenbach). The State of Wisconsin was aware of this abuse, but still did nothing to intervene and stop the mistreatment of this child (Wichenbach). The State’s inaction led to the Supreme Court case DeShaney v. Winnebago Department of Social Services, in which Joshua’s mother, Melody, sued the Winnebago Department of Social Services claiming, “the social worker deprived Joshua of his liberty without due process of law” (Alexander). In order to fully understand the DeShaney case, one must conduct thorough background research, delve into the court case itself, and analyze the impact the case has yet today.

They do not deserve to have their lives threatened or to see their mother abused the way she was. However, there were people in my family who felt as though they didn’t need any help or that they were fine and it was all blown out of proportion. While this distortion is damaging to the children who were traumatized, it also shows how trauma affects the person holding the distortion. It shows that their perspective of trauma was handled in a different way than other people and it creates a challenge. It challenged me to understand how different people perceive the trauma of others and how it affects everyone’s lives

A woman, named Dellena, was involved in sex trafficking business. She made a documentary titled, “Human Trafficking Survivor Story: Dellena, California,” where she shares her experience as a victim. As a little girl, her mother was very negative and always put her down. Her parents were divorced when Dellena was just a child. Not before long her mother remarried. Dellena’s new stepfather molested her and her sister at the age of seven. Soon after her parents remarried, she was put in the foster care system for five years and her mother never once came to see her. One day her mother showed up and told Dellena she was going home. Dellena said, “The reason my mother wanted me home was because my stepfather wanted me home because he liked twelve-year-old girls. That was the perfect age for him” (“Human Trafficking Survivor Story: Dellena, California”). After being molested again, she ran away from her home. On the streets she met a 21-year old, who took her

Child abuse in America is an ongoing problem and something needs to be done. There are approximately one million children abused annually in the United States. (Table 339) Cases of child abuse and neglect are reported every ten seconds, and researchers believe that there’s three times that amount that goes unnoticed. (Child Abuse: Know the Signs and Stop the Violence Against Children.) Something needs to be done for these children who are too weak and too powerless to help themselves.

In the essay Serving Life for Surviving Abuse by Jessica Pishko, the main topic is talking about American criminal justice system. In particular, it focuses on woman that have been abuse, but still sentenced to a life in jail for never receiving a fair trial. Pishko points out one case about a woman named, Kelly Savage, and uses her story to show the reader about the truth behind the justice system. The truth behind the American justice system being that it is focused more on males, blame it on the women, and does not always listen to the full story.

It might be difficult to accept but every child can be hurt, put at risk or harm or abused, regardless of their age, gender, religion or ethnicity.

Rita Price, writer for The Columbus Dispatch, recounts a horrific story about siblings who suffered numerous accounts of abuse. After being beaten with baseball bats, burned with irons, starved, and forced to drink their own urine, the Ferguson children were finally able to come forward and testify against their adoptive parents in order to send them to prison. The children did not believe they had a voice, and the abuse went unnoticed for years. The Ferguson children, along with many others in similar situations, do not feel they have anyone to turn to. After going through foster care systems and the adoption process, the children had already experienced large amounts of change and stress, only to be left with negligent parents. In

This article documents the history of child abuse in the U.S. that dates back to colonial times. Children were considered property and animals were better protected than children. This was evident with Mary Ellen’s case in 1873. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals fought for this child and the New York state court ordered the child to be removed from her abusive home and place

No one ever considers who may have had an abusive past. Take for instants Kane Blacque, a successful and happy man from Edmonton, Canada. He is a loving husband with a wonderful job and a new puppy. However, few people realize that he suffered from child abuse from his own mother and multiple foster homes. Blacque’s mother mistreated her children so poorly that she had killed his baby sister. From that point on Blacque and his brother bounced from one foster home to the next. Blacque claims that he was abused emotionally, sexually, and physically at the various foster homes he lived in. He eventually ages out of the system, but that did not bring happy times. Blacque found his way into drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and he even tried to commit suicide multiple times. It took Blacque many years to find actual purpose in his life, but when he did he understood that the past made him into the person he is today. Blacque only brought up the painful memories of being abused as a child to Global News after a four-year old girl was abused to death in the care of a foster family. Blacque himself states that “social workers had noticed bruises on my arms, or burns-but nothing was ever done.” Blacque’s point is that the system he was in thirty-seven years ago, is still turning a blind eye to the abuse that is happening in foster homes. Very few people can make the slow recovery from abuse like Blacque could, however, many end up like the unfortunate four-year old. In

Jen Lemos is very objective when writing in the article. Lemos sticks with the information he got and doesn’t tell much about his own opinion. There is none form of appeal in the newspaper. He writes about what Liza Kessler and Judith Mellen talks about and their opinion.

Who was it that sat behind the computer screen and typed what would soon be published in your favorite newspaper? When you read anything in the newspaper you do not know much about the author of the article aside from his or her name. With such little knowledge, how can you discern whether you are being presented with an article that is in compliance to reality or rather a story that has been transformed because of an author’s biased attitudes? Take for example The Fourth Branch, a student run newspaper at Tennyson High School. Writers of the newspaper do not have any special certification or degree, rather they are journalist enthusiasts who write about a wide range of news articles.

The earliest report of child abuse was in 1874 with the case of Mary Ellen McCormack, who was 10 years old and living in Manhattan at the time. This case brought attention to reformers who strived to prevent child abuse and protect victims, an effort that persists even today. The awareness of child abuse also prompted researchers to find a correlation between abuse and criminal behavior in adulthood. At the time of McCormack’s case, there were no laws protecting children from physical abuse from their parents. In late 1873, Mary Ellen McCormack caught the attention of her neighbors who realized how severely battered and neglected she was by her adoptive mother, Mary Connolly. The neighbors reported this to the Department of Public Charities and Correction, which was in charge of New York’s insane asylums, orphanages, jails, and public hospitals.

Having previously been a foster parent here in Nebraska, I knew immediately where I wanted get my information for this Victim's Advocate Project. Having worked directly with the Child Advocacy Center in Lincoln with some of my former foster children, I was happy to get into contact with its executive director, Lynn Ayers. Lynn has been working in victim's advocacy, particularly as a children and family advocate for over 36 years, and has a wealth of knowledge on the subject. In her time in this field, she has seen a variety of cases and was more than happy to respond to my request for an interview via e-mail correspondence.

The movie 'Clueless' directed by Amy Heckerling, is mainly focused on the idea that doing things to benefit yourself is not always a bad thing. A character that I liked in this film was Cher Horowitz. I liked her character because of the adaptions she made throughout the movie. At the beginning of the movie, she is selfish and shallow and does everything to benefit only herself. Then her step brother confronts her about how selfish she is.

Child abuse is just one of the problems in America we face today. Child abuse affects a child’s mind, emotional state of being and this type of abuse or cruelty molds a person to whom they are by the age of eighteen and is a worldwide prevailing occurrence. “Child abuse or ill-treatment creates all forms of physical and /or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power.” Child sexual abuse had been extensively known as one of the distress in a child’s life. Previous study have delivered tough indication of child sexual abuse is connected with a quantity of psychological, social, and mental health problems. Depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, and most illnesses among adult child sexual abuse victims. Former analyses have stated that some of the fears include sexual illnesses, victimization, and close acquaintance violence. In recent times, it has been establish that various physical health conditions are connected to child sexual abuse. In accumulation, child sexual abuse fighters have been found to accomplish less in knowledge and revenue.