Child Abuse
In a quote from National Statistics On Child Abuse it states “More than 700,000 children are abused in the U.S annually.” Child abuse can be defined as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse towards any person who is under the age of 18. In most of the cases reported the abuser is the parent or caregiver of the child. Not many people realize the amount of cases that are reported each day due to child abuse. Although there are many laws put into places today regarding child abuse, Judges should enforce stricter punishments for the perpetrator because the children are helpless and the punishment should fit the severity of the crime.
Child abuse can be one of the most serve crimes committed by parents or caregivers. From an article
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For example, on January 18th of this year in Arizona a child abuse case was reported that was found to be one of the worst cases of child abuse that the officers had seen. A 3-year-old girl was found in a closet with duct tape around her arms, legs, mouth, and hands. She was stuck in the closet in a trash bag that was surrounded by feces. She had multiple bruises throughout her body and she was extremely malnourished. She was unable to stand on her own due to the extreme amount of neglect that had occurred. The child’s mother had been dropping her off with this man that would abuse her both physically and sexually. This case of child abuse is very extreme and consequences for the perpetrators such be just as severe. Both the mother and the friend were taken into custody and were arrested on different counts of child abuse among other things as well. But will that be enough? The child will forever be emotionally and possibly physically damaged for the rest of her life. While in this case the suspects were arrested, some victims aren’t as lucky. Some child can have physical damage due to being malnourished or neglected and others can be mentally damaged from the experience that they went through. Protecting these children is the most important thing to worry about and making sure that the people who physically, emotionally, or sexually abused them are held responsible for their …show more content…
For example, there was a case where child protective services didn’t look into situation regarding a little boy being abused by his mother’s boyfriend. This little boy was killed at the age of 2 from the abuse. There was a letter sent into child protective services from the father himself and still no one had looked into the suspected abuse. Child protective services failed to protect this little boy. This is just one of the many problems with child abuse cases. There needs to be more preventing of children killed from abuse. It was found that 72% of child abuse cases aren’t even looked into by cps. That is an extremely large amount of kids that could possibly die just due to the fact that child protective services won’t even look into their case. Many children could get saved from their home life if they would do more about this. Of those cases that weren’t reported almost 1300 children died from their abuse. Out of those 1300 kids 90% of those kids were 5 years old or younger. These children were unable to protect themselves from the abuse. No one was able to help these kids because child protective services didn’t do their job. This could have been prevented had people looked into each of their cases. Child protective services need to be more thorough when looking into the cases and do everything possible to help the children in these
In his article, Jim Hmurovich discusses the need for a uniform, national policy for the prevention of child abuse. He covers what we need policy wise, as well as financially. He state that “The focus should be on each state implementing comprehensive, evidence based, community-driven child abuse and neglect prevention strategies based upon the state's needs. With an emphasis on healthy children, family and community development, a state could develop benchmarks and measures to assess progress and demonstrate to the public what is being accomplished (Hmurovich, 2009).” This is completely true. Without the proper plans, and funding in place it is virtually impossible for proper education to be put in place, with the exception of private organizations.
Child abuse has an impact on the many crimes America faces. Child abuse is not always easy to distinguish at a quick glance and can go on for years without someone knowing. Many criminal justice practitioners are involved in these cases. Between psychologist that help the children recover ,and find out their stories to the police officers who arrests the offenders, Child abuse is a delicate situation and takes the upmost care.
My field placement will be at Child protective services in El Paso TX. My Target population for my field placement will be Children who have been maltreated, neglected and abused. Child abuse prevention has grown exponentially in El Paso over the past 31 years. In El Paso alone the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigated 4,979 reports of alleged child abuse in 2014 in El Paso County. They confirmed that 1,339 children were indeed victims of abuse; 379 confirmed cases of Physical abuse, 166 confirmed cases of sexual abuse, 56 cases of emotional abuse and 70 cases of medical neglect (Lee & Beulah Moor,2016) A troubling trend has emerged regarding the prevention of child maltreatment in the state of Texas. A tragic loophole contributing to continued abuse and in many cases child fatalities, continues to be exploited to the detriment of one of our most vulnerable populations. From 2009 to 2014, there were 800 child fatalities reported as abuse and neglect deaths by Child Protective Services in all of Texas (Ball, 2015). An analysis of these cases by an independent research group found gross errors by CPS and other agencies during ongoing abuse cases enabled the abuse or neglect to continue, inevitably leading to death. Although the percentage of child fatalities is just a tiny fraction of the exorbitant number of cases CPS handles each year, even one child losing their life in such a horrendous fashion is too much. The loophole in question involves CPS’
Countless number of children that are removed from their homes should not have been. In New York alone, just as the police have to distribute a certain amount of citations a month, CPS workers are required by law to remove a certain amount of children a month to meet their quota. I believe that when a crime is committed against a child, police action should be take a s a necessary procedure to properly investigate and gather accurate evidence of abuse, therefore giving the accused fair due process.
What is child abuse? From the word “abuse” we can understand that it is some sort of a maltreatment of a child, causing harm and damage both to his physical and psychological well-being. At the Federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) describes child abuse and neglect as: “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Child abuse is a very substantial and widely spread problem in U.S. affecting children of any age, gender, race, background or income, with more than 1.8 million investigations done every year and on average, killing more than 5 children every day. The main issue of child abuse is that the abuser is usually someone a child loves or depends on (a parent, sibling, coach, neighbor, etc.), who violates child’s trust putting personal interests first, therefore official numbers of how many children suffer maltreatment might be not accurate enough as remarkable amount of these cases go unreported. Each case of child abuse is unique, with a lot of individual factors involved, nevertheless, we can distinguish some of the common causes, such as poverty, lack of education, depression, mental or physical health
Child abuse should not happen. Any kid should never go through this. People have noticed that if the child that was abused does not seek help and counselling they could turn out the same way. their beatings could become more brutal. They could get addicted to the same things their parents did. As the child grows older they will have scars. Not only physically but, mentally. The child could possibly be immune to the beating and as they grow older the could fall into a abusive relationship and think its okay. Therefore the parents that abused should be in jail maybe even prison for life.
There are many things in our society today that unfortunately go overlooked. One such thing that is overlooked is the number of children who are being abused. Unfortunately these children are going through life not knowing whether or not their parents will loose their temper and perhaps kill them. There are many types of child abuse, such as physical, sexual, and emotional. Physical abuse is physical injury as a result of punching, beating, kicking, biting, shaking, throwing, stabbing, choking, hitting, burning, or otherwise harming a child. Such injury is considered abuse regardless of whether the caretaker intended to hurt the child. Sexual abuse includes activities by a parent or caretaker such as fondling a child's genitals,
For 30 years, advocates, program administrators, and politicians have joined to encourage even more reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. Their efforts have been successful, with about three million cases of suspected child abuse having been reported in 1993. Large numbers of endangered children still go unreported, but a serious problem had developed: Upon investigation, as many as 65 percent or the reports now being made are determined to be "unsubstantiated", raising serious civil liberties concerns and placing a huge burden on investigative staffs.
Child abuse is the physical or emotional abuse of a child by a parent, guardian, or other person. Reports of child abuse, including sexual abuse, beating, and murder, have jumped in the United States and some authorities believe that the number of cases is largely under reported. Child neglect is also included in legal definitions of child abuse to cover instances of malnutrition, desertion, and inadequate care of a child's safety. When reported, inadequate foster care services and a legal system that has trouble accommodating the suggestible nature of children, who are often developmentally unable to distinguish fact from make-believe, complicate child abuse cases
Child abuse is epidemic in many countries as well as the United States. It is estimated that every thirteen seconds a child is abused in some manner: physically, sexually, emotionally or by neglect (Friedman). Each year, there are over 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States involving more than 6 million children. Child abuse can be reduced with proper education of the parents and with greater public awareness.
It breaks my heart to know that child abuse has a history and throughout history children have been subjected to extensive physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect. However, doing most of the history of child abuse was accepted and in some cases it was encouraged. As time progressed child abuse has grown to receive more attention and is being recognized as a severe epidemic that has to be stopped. I believe that the views of child abuse has changed over the years for it has left the home from being a private issue to a public issue where different agencies are involved in order to resolve the child abuse and neglect issue. Agencies that take part in investigating and preventing child abuse in today’s time are the Family and Protective Services, SCAN, and several more agencies that are committed to stopping child abuse and
Investigators substantiated abuse or neglect for nearly 1 million of the children reported. Among substantiated cases, 56 percent involved physical or emotional neglect, 25 percent involved physical abuse, 13 percent involved sexual abuse, 6 percent involved emotional abuse, and 13 percent involved other abuse, such as educational neglect or abandonment. Some children experienced multiple forms of abuse.
Child abuse is a prevalent thing in communities and often time the victims are suffering in silence. We, as a society, have a bad habit of “turning our heads the other way” or “not wanting to get involved.” The mentality of “it’s none of our business” is an extremely dangerous mind set to have. It is time for America to step up and start helping the ones that are not able to fight for themselves. The children of our country.
Child abuse consists of any act or failure to act that endangers a child’s physical or emotional health and development. A person caring for a child is abusive if he or she fails to nurture the child, physically injures the child, or relates sexually to the child (Robins). Child abuse is broken down into four major categories: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Aside from the abuse itself, the cost of the tragic events costs the United States billions of dollars each year. Every day, approximately 4 children in the United States die resulting from child abuse and the majority are under 5-years-old (Fromm). There are many organizations that promote preventative measures in reducing child abuse. If nothing is done,
Child abuse in American today is amongst the most saddened topics of mankind. Many children are subjected to neglect and abuse on a daily basis. The sex and age of child makes no difference when it comes to child abuse.. Boys and girls are equally likely to suffer maltreatment. The problem is how often child abuse goes unreported. Millions of children across the world are abused in some way, whether it is verbal, emotional, physical or sexual. Child abuse has been happening all over the world to young children, however many children keep this a secret because of fear of what could happen. Child Abuse consists of any act of commission or omission that endangers or impairs a child’s physical or emotional health and development. It can be