NEHEMIAH GRIEGO, 15, told people at his church that his family had been killed in a car crash and were lying dead inside their home in South Valley, New Mexico. However, police investigation quickly determined that Nehemiah himself had shot and killed his father, mother, and three young siblings. When church officials called the police, the boy led them to his home where the victims, Greg and Sarah Griego and three of their children, Zephania (9), Jael (5), and Angelina (2), were found shot to death. Nehemiah then told deputies the shootings happened because he had “anger issues” and “was annoyed with” his mother. He had been having homicidal and suicidal thoughts, and so around midnight he got a .22 caliber rifle from his parents’ closet and shot his mother in the head, killing her. His 9-year-old brother was sleeping next to her. His brother became upset when he woke up, so Nehemiah shot him in the head. When his sisters began to cry, he shot both of them in the head as well. Nehemiah then got an AR-15 rifle from the closet and waited in a bathroom until his father arrived home at about 5:00 AM. He then shot his father multiple times, killing him instantly. Nehemiah put some of the guns in the family’s van and drove it to Calvary Church, where his story of what happened to his family was questioned. He also told police he took a picture of his dead mother and sent it to his 12-year-old girlfriend. 1

While the Griego family killings are unusual, they are not unique. Each year about 350 murders involve nuclear family members, parents, or brothers and sisters. While there is little question that a positive and nurturing family life can help protect kids from antisocial behaviors, a family wracked by conflict can produce the opposite effect. In fact, most delinquency experts agree that interactions between parents and children, and between siblings, and across genders, provide opportunities for children to acquire or inhibit antisocial behavior patterns. 2 Even kids who are predisposed toward delinquency because of abnormal personality traits or mood disorders, such Nehemiah Griego, may find their life circumstances improved and their involvement with antisocial behavior diminished if they are exposed to positive and effective parenting. 3

Families may be more important than peer groups as an influence on adolescent misbehavior. 4 It comes as no surprise that research shows that, as young adults, people who maintain positive lifestyles report having had warm relationships with their parents, while those who perceived a lack of parental warmth and support were later much more likely to get involved in antisocial behaviors. 5 Families that lack the resources to support at-risk youth simply may be unable to prevent their offspring from entering a delinquent way of life. 6

Good parenting lowers the risk of delinquency for children living in high-crime areas. Research shows kids resist the temptation of the streets if they receive fair discipline and support from parents who provide them with positive role models. 7

For a great deal of information on programs for families and children, visit the David and Lucile Packard Foundation website ( http://www.packard.org/what-we-fund/children-families-and-communities/ ), or visit the Criminal Justice CourseMate at cengagebrain.com , then access the “Web Links” for this chapter.

Warm and supportive relationships with parents provide an environment for adolescents in which they are able to adapt to environmentally derived stress and strain in a healthy manner. Families that bond and that have family dinner together on a regular basis seem to be most able to shield children from damaging social and cultural influences. 8 Positive relationships with parents promote prosocial behavior even among adolescents who are exposed to damaging life events or chronic environmental strains. 9

Because these issues are critical for understanding delinquency, this chapter is devoted to an analysis of the family’s role in producing or inhibiting delinquency. We first cover the changing face of the American family. We will review the way family structure and function influence delinquent behavior. The relationships among child abuse, neglect, and delinquency are covered in some depth.

The Changing American Family

The assumed relationship between delinquency and family life is critical today, because the American family is changing. Extended families, once common, are now for the most part anachronisms. In their place is the nuclear family , described as a “dangerous hothouse of emotions,” because of the close contact between parents and children; in these families, problems are unrelieved by contact with other kin living nearby. 10

nuclear family

A family unit composed of parents and their children; this smaller family structure is subject to great stress due to the intense, close contact between parents and children.

And now the nuclear family is showing signs of breakdown. About half of all marriages may one day end in divorce (the marriage rate: 6.8 per 1,000 total population; the divorce rate: 3.4 per 1,000 population). 11 Much of the responsibility for childrearing is delegated to television and daycare providers. While some families continue functioning as healthy units, producing well-adjusted children, others have crumbled under the stress, severely damaging their children. 12

The so-called traditional family—with a male breadwinner and a female who cares for the home—is a thing of the past. No longer can this family structure be considered the norm. Changing sex roles have created a family in which women play a much greater role in the economic process; this has created a more egalitarian family structure. About three-quarters of all mothers of school-age children are employed, up from 50 percent in 1970 and 40 percent in 1960. The changing economic structure may be reflected in shifting sex roles. Fathers are now spending more time with their children on workdays than they did 20 years ago, and mothers are spending somewhat less time. 13

Family Makeup

There are now about 75 million children under age 18 living in America. As Figure 8.1 shows, roughly two-thirds of these underage minors now live in two-parent families:

· Of the 75 million children younger than 18, most (about 70 percent) live with two parents, while another 27 percent live with one parent and the rest with a relative or guardian.

· Among the children who live with one parent, 87 percent live with their mother.

· Of the children living with no parents present, most live with a grandparent.

figure 8.1: Percentage of Children Ages 0–17 Living in Various Family Arrangements

SOURCE: US Census Bureau, “Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements,” http://childstats.gov/americaschildren/fam_fig.asp (accessed June 2013).

There are still significant racial differences in family makeup. About one-third of all African American children live in families that have two parents compared to about three-quarters of European American children. As many as 40 percent of European American children and 75 percent of African American children will experience parental separation or divorce before they reach age 16, and many of these children will experience multiple family disruptions over time. 14

Ironically, while fewer underage children today are living with two parents, the proportion of young adults still living in their parents’ home (called the “Boomerang Generation”) has significantly increased during the past decade. The percentage of men age 25 to 34 living in the home of their parents rose from 14 percent in 2005 to about 20 percent today; young women are less likely to live at home, but the likelihood of them returning to the nest also increased (from 8 to 10 percent). 15 The reason: the economic downturn and lack of jobs has made independent living financially difficult.

Fragile Families

Nonmarital childbearing increased dramatically in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth century, changing the context in which American children are raised and giving rise to a new family form—fragile families, defined as unmarried couples with children. Some analysts see these changes as a positive sign of greater individual freedom and women’s economic independence; others argue that they contribute to poverty and income inequality. 16 Given the importance of families to children’s health and development, researchers and policy makers have become increasingly interested in the nature of parental relationships in fragile families and their implications for children’s future life chances, especially children’s access to resources and the stability and quality of these resources. Parents living in cooperative, stable unions tend to pool their incomes and work together to raise their child. By contrast, those living apart in uncooperative relationships can jeopardize their child’s resources, both financial and social. Such living arrangements can also impact on a child’s well-being: research indicates that child abuse is more likely to occur in two-parent families in which one caretaker is a live-in boyfriend or stepfather. 17

In sum, at the time their child is born, unmarried parents have high hopes for a future together. About half of these parents are living together, and another 30 percent are romantically involved. Relationship quality and father involvement are high. Underlying this optimism, however, are signs of problems, including distrust of the opposite sex and a belief that a single mother can raise a child as well as a married mother. Five years later, the picture is more mixed. On the positive side, about a third of parents are living together, about half of noncohabiting fathers see their child on a regular basis, and co-parenting relationships are positive. On the negative side, a third of fathers have virtually disappeared from their children’s lives, and new partnerships and new children are common, leading to high instability and growing complexity in these families.

Teen Moms/Single Moms

Living in a single-parent home, especially one headed by an unmarried teenage mother, has long been associated with difficulties for both the mother and her child. As you may recall ( Chapter 1 ), kids born into single-parent homes are more likely to live in poverty and to experience long-term physical and social difficulties. 18 One reason is that more than 90 percent of teens who give birth are unmarried, compared with 62 percent in 1980, and young single moms may have a tough time earning a decent living in a tough economy. 19

Very often these conditions are interactive: teen moms suffer social problems, which in turn have a negative effect on their children. Research shows that by age 14, when compared to the children of older moms, the offspring of teen mothers were more likely to have disturbed psychological behavior, poorer school performance, poorer reading ability, were involved with the criminal justice system, and were more likely to smoke and drink on a regular basis. However, the connection between teen moms and troubled children flows through their economic circumstances—those without economic means were much more likely to produce troubled kids than those who enjoyed support, financial and otherwise, from their families. 20

While teenage moms still experience difficulties, there are significantly fewer of them in the population than there were 20 years ago (see Figure 8.2 ). Availability of birth control and the legalization of abortion has helped reduce the number of pregnant teens. However, there remains substantial racial and ethnic disparities among the birth rates for adolescents ages 15 through 17. Today, the teen birth rate per 1,000 ranges from 7 for Asians to 41 for Hispanics. While this disparity is troubling, the birth rates for black non-Hispanic, white non-Hispanic, and Asian or Pacific Islander females ages 15 through 17 dropped by about half or more since 1991. As Figure 8.2 shows, the decline has been experienced by girls in all racial and ethnic groups.

figure 8.2: Birthrates for Females Ages 15–17 by Race and Ethnicity Origin

SOURCE: “America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009,” http://www.childstats.gov/pdf/ac2009/ac_09.pdf (accessed June 2013).

Child Care

Charged with caring for children is a daycare system whose workers are often paid minimum wage. Of special concern are “family daycare homes,” in which a single provider takes care of three to nine children. Today more than 60 percent of all young children, about 12 million, are in some form of child care, either before or after they begin their formal education. Children living in poverty are much more likely to be in nonparental care than more affluent kids. Several states neither license nor monitor these private providers. Even in states that mandate registration and inspection of daycare providers, it is estimated that 90 percent or more of the facilities operate “underground.” It is not uncommon for one adult to care for eight infants, an impossible task regardless of training or feelings of concern. During times of economic downturn, unlicensed child care provides a more reasonable alternative to state-regulated and therefore more costly licensed centers. And because punishments are typically a small fine, prosecutors rarely go after unlicensed child care operators unless tragedy strikes. Such was the case when recently four children died in unlicensed child care centers in Jackson County, Missouri, in an eight-month period. Two of the deaths occurred where caregivers were watching too many children without a license; despite their legal problems the center operators continue to care for children. 21

Children from working poor families are most likely to suffer from inadequate child care; these children often spend time in makeshift arrangements that allow their parents to work, but lack the stimulating environment children need to thrive. Unlike many other Western countries, the United States does not provide universal daycare to working mothers. As a result, writes Valerie Polakow in her provocative book Who Cares for Our Children? The Child Care Crisis in the Other America, lack of access to affordable high-quality child care is frequently the tipping point that catapults a family into poverty, joblessness, and homelessness—a constant threat to the well-being of lower-class women and children. 22

Economic Stress

The family is also undergoing economic stress and there are more than 16 million kids living in poverty. 23 The majority of indigent families live in substandard housing without adequate health care, nutrition, or child care. Those whose incomes place them above the poverty line are deprived of government assistance. Recent political trends suggest that the social “safety net” is under attack and that poor families can expect less government aid in the coming years.

Will this economic pressure be reduced in the future? In addition to recent economic upheaval and high unemployment rates, the family will remain under stress because of changes in the population makeup. Life spans are increasing, and as a result the number of senior citizens is on the rise. There are currently about 4 million people over 85 years of age in the United States, a number that will rise to 20 million by 2050. 24 As people retire, there will be fewer workers to cover the costs of Social Security, medical care, and nursing home care. Because the elderly will require a greater percentage of the nation’s income for their care, less money will be available to care for needy children. These costs will put greater economic stress on families. Voter sentiment has an impact on the allocation of public funds, and there is concern that an older generation, worried about health care costs, may be reluctant to spend tax dollars on at-risk kids. The Focus on Delinquency feature “Economic Stress and Delinquency” describes a long-term study of how economic stressors affect families.

FOCUS on delinquency: Economic Stress and Delinquency

Rand Conger is one of the nation’s leading experts on family life. For the past two decades, he has been involved with four major community studies that have examined the influence of economic stress on families, children, and adolescents; in sum, these studies involve almost 1,500 families and over 4,000 individual family members, who represent a diverse cross-section of society. The extensive information that has been collected on all of these families over time includes reports by family members, videotaped discussions in the home, and data from schools and other community agencies.

One thing that Conger and his associates have learned is that in all of these different types of families, economic stress appears to have a harmful effect on parents and children. According to his “Family Stress Model” of economic hardship, such factors as low income and income loss increase parents’ sadness, pessimism about the future, anger, despair, and withdrawal from other family members. Economic stress has this impact on parents’ social-emotional functioning through the daily pressures it creates for them, such as being unable to pay bills or acquire basic necessities (adequate food, housing, clothing, and medical care). As parents become more emotionally distressed, they tend to interact with one another and their children in a more irritable and less supportive fashion. These patterns of behavior increase instability in the marriage and also disrupt effective parenting practices, such as monitoring children’s activities and using consistent and appropriate disciplinary strategies. Marital instability and disrupted parenting, in turn, increase children’s risk of suffering developmental problems, such as depression, substance abuse, and engaging in delinquent behaviors. These economic stress processes also decrease children’s ability to function in a competent manner in school and with peers.

The findings also show, however, that parents who remain supportive of one another, and who demonstrate effective problem-solving skills in spite of hardship, can disrupt this negative process and shield their children and themselves from these adverse consequences of economic stress. These parenting skills can be taught and used by human service professionals to assist families experiencing economic pressure or similar stresses in their lives.

CRITICAL THINKING

To help deal with these problems, Conger advocates support for social policies that adequately aid families during stressful times as they recover from downturns in the economy. He also advocates educating parents about effective strategies for managing the economic, emotional, and family relationship challenges they will face when hardship occurs. What would you add to the mix to improve family functioning in America?

SOURCES: Rand D. Conger and Katherine Jewsbury Conger, “Understanding the Processes through which Economic Hardship Influences Families and Children, in D. Russell Crane and Tim B. Heaton, eds., Handbook of Families and Poverty (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008), pp. 64–81; Iowa State University, Institute for Social and Behavioral Research, the research of Rand Conger, http://www.isbr.iastate.edu/staff/Personals/rdconger/ (accessed June 2013).

The Family’s Influence on Delinquency

The effect of these family stressors can have a significant impact on children’s behavior. The family is the primary unit in which children learn the values and attitudes that guide their actions throughout their lives. Family disruption or change can have a long-lasting impact on children. In contrast, effective parenting can help neutralize the effect of both individual (e.g., emotional problems) and social (e.g., delinquent peers) forces, which promote delinquent behaviors. 25

Four categories of family dysfunction seem to promote delinquent behavior: families disrupted by separation and divorce, families involved in interpersonal conflict, ineffective parents who lack proper parenting skills, and families that contain deviant parents who may transmit their behavior to their children (see Figure 8.3 ). 26 These factors may interact with one another: drug-abusing parents may be more likely to experience family conflict, child neglect, and marital breakup. We now turn to the specific types of family problems that have been linked to delinquent behavior.

figure 8.3: Family Influences on Behavior

Each of these four factors has been linked to antisocial behavior and delinquency. Interaction between these factors may escalate delinquent activity.

Family Breakup

One of the most enduring controversies in the study of delinquency is the relationship between a parent absent from the home and the onset of delinquent behavior. Parents or guardians act as the main source of informal social control. When a breakdown in the family occurs, the social control function is interrupted and children are free to get involved in antisocial behaviors. 27

Research indicates that parents whose marriage is secure produce children who are self-confident and independent. 28 In contrast, research conducted in both the United States and abroad shows that children raised in homes with one or both parents absent may be prone to antisocial behavior. 29 A number of experts contend that a broken home is a strong determinant of a child’s law-violating behavior. The connection seems self-evident, because a child is first socialized at home and therefore any disjunction in an orderly family structure could be expected to have a negative impact on the child.

broken home

Home in which one or both parents are absent due to divorce or separation; children in such an environment may be prone to antisocial behavior.

The suspected broken home–delinquency relationship is important because, if current trends continue, less than half of all children born today will live continuously with their own mother and father throughout childhood. And because stepfamilies, or so-called blended families , are less stable than families consisting of two biological parents, an increasing number of children will experience family breakup two or even three times during childhood. 30

blended families

Nuclear families that are the product of divorce and remarriage, blending one parent from each of two families and their combined children into one family unit.

Economic stress can influence family functioning. Here, Laura, 27, with her daughter, fills out a form at the Jefferson Action Center, an assistance center in the Denver suburb of Lakewood. Laura grew up in a solidly middle-class family, but she and her boyfriend, who has struggled to find work, are now relying on government assistance to cover food and $650 rent for their family. More than 40 million Americans now live below the poverty line, a number unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and a fraying government safety net. Will economic hardship eventually produce increases in the delinquency rate?

Children who have experienced family breakup are more likely to demonstrate behavior problems and hyperactivity than children in intact families. 31 Family breakup is often associated with conflict, hostility, and aggression; children of divorce are suspected of having lax supervision, weakened attachment, and greater susceptibility to peer pressure. 32

The effects of divorce seem gender-specific:

· Boys seem to be more affected by the post-divorce absence of the father. In post-divorce situations, fathers seem less likely to be around to solve problems, to discuss standards of conduct, or to enforce discipline. A divorced father who remains actively involved in his child’s life reduces his son’s chances of delinquency.

· Girls are more affected by both the quality of the mother’s parenting and post-divorce parental conflict. It is possible that extreme levels of parental conflict may serve as a model to young girls coping with the aftermath of their parents’ separation. 33

· There are distinct racial and ethnic differences in the impact of divorce/separation on youth. Some groups (e.g., Hispanics, Asians) have been raised in cultures where divorce is rare and parents have less experience in developing childrearing practices that buffer the effects of family breakup on adolescent problem behavior. 34

Divorce and Delinquency

The relationship between broken homes and delinquency has been controversial, to say the least. It was first established in early research, which suggested that a significant association existed between parental absence and youthful misconduct. 35 For many years the link was clear: children growing up in broken homes were much more likely to fall prey to delinquency than those who lived in two-parent households. 36

Beginning in the late 1950s, some researchers began to question the link between broken homes and delinquency. Early studies, they claimed, used the records of police, courts, and correctional institutions. 37 This research may have been tainted by sampling bias: Youths from broken homes may get arrested more often than youths from intact families, but this does not necessarily mean they engage in more frequent and serious delinquent behavior. Official statistics may reflect the fact that agents of the justice system treat children from disrupted households more severely, because they cannot call on parents for support. The parens patriae philosophy of the juvenile courts calls for official intervention when parental supervision is considered inadequate. 38 A number of subsequent studies, using self-report data, have failed to establish any clear-cut relationship between broken homes and delinquent behavior. 39 Boys and girls from intact families seem as likely to self-report delinquency as those whose parents are divorced or separated. Researchers concluded that the absence of parents has a greater effect on agents of the justice system than it does on the behavior of children. 40

The Divorce-Delinquency Link Reconsidered

The consensus is that family breakup is in fact traumatic and most likely does have a direct influence on adolescent misbehavior. 41 Research shows that the more often children are forced to go through family transitions, the more likely they are to engage in delinquent activity. 42 So the prevailing wisdom today is that divorce is related to delinquency and status offending, especially if a child had a close relationship with the parent who is forced to leave the home. 43

Of course, not all kids growing up in homes in which parents are divorced or separated turn to delinquency. Most do not, and the majority grow up to live happy and fulfilled lives. One divorce situation is obviously different from another, and these differences may explain the effect of family dissolution on a child’s misbehavior.

One factor may be how parents react to marital breakup. As you may recall ( Chapter 6 ), developmental/life-course theorists, such as Robert Sampson and John Laub, believe that a good marriage helps men “knife off” from misbehavior. If conversely a divorce is hostile, anger and rage that may have precipitated the dissolution of the marriage may not be alleviated by separation. Domestic violence that may have been present in stress-filled marriages does not abate after separation but merely shifts to ex-partners who are targeted in the aftermath of divorce. 44 Parents who are in post-divorce turmoil may in turn influence their children to misbehave.

Another factor is how parental bonds are affected by marital breakup. When Sara Jaffee and her associates studied the quality of marriage, they found that the less time fathers lived with their children, the more conduct problems their children manifested. However, when fathers themselves engage in high levels of antisocial behavior, their leaving home may actually improve their children’s behavior. Staying married, Jaffee concludes, may not be the answer to the problems faced by children living in single-parent families unless parents can refrain from deviant behaviors and become reliable sources of emotional and economic support. 45

It is also possible that family breakup is not per se the cause of children’s misbehavior, but rather, it’s the aftermath of divorce that is to blame. After a divorce, some newly single parents may spend more time socializing outside of the home, looking for new romantic partners, at the expense of family time. Less supervision and a reduction of family attachments may be the real culprit and not the events leading up to divorce and separation associated with concurrent increases in offending. 46

Long-Term Effects

Not only does divorce hurt kids in the near term, it also has long-term consequences that harm their childhood and may last into adulthood. In her study of the effects of parental absence on children, sociologist Sara McLanahan found that children who grow up apart from their biological fathers typically do less well than children who grow up with both biological parents. They are less likely to finish high school and attend college, less likely to find and keep a steady job, and more likely to become teen parents. Although most children who grow up with a single parent do quite well, differences between children in one- and two-parent families are significant, and there is fairly good evidence that father absence per se is responsible for some social problems. 47

In their classic book The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee reported on the findings of a longitudinal study with 131 children whose parents divorced during their adolescence. 48 They found that children of divorce develop lingering fears about their own ability to develop long-term relationships; these fears often impede their ability to marry and raise families. While most parents are able to reduce their emotional pain and get on with their lives a few years after they separate, this is not true of their children, whose emotional turmoil may last for decades. Wallerstein and her associates found that adolescents who experienced divorce are still struggling with the fear that their relationships will fail like those of their parents.

While divorce may take a heavy toll, it is true that many kids who experience family breakup do quite well and are able to get through the ordeal in good shape. When E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly studied the children of divorce, they found that many do undergo some trauma, but for the most part they are much better off than those Wallerstein encountered. 49 While children in single-parent families and stepfamilies have more psychological problems than those in intact families, more than 75 percent ultimately do as well as children from intact families.

Family Conflict

Not all unhappy marriages end in divorce; some continue in an atmosphere of conflict. Intrafamily conflict is a common experience in many American families. The link between parental conflict and delinquency was established more than 50 years ago when F. Ivan Nye found that a child’s perception of his or her parents’ marital happiness was a significant predictor of delinquency. 50 Contemporary studies support these early findings that children who grow up in maladapted homes and witness discord or violence later exhibit emotional disturbance and behavior problems. 51 There seems to be little difference between the behavior of children who merely witness intrafamily violence and those who are its victims. 52 In one recent study, family expert Lynette Renner found that children who experienced any form of family violence were more likely to act out than those who avoided relational conflict. However, Renner found that children who experienced indirect types of family violence, such as exposure to the physical abuse of a sibling, were more likely to externalize behavior scores than children who experienced direct maltreatment and child physical abuse. 53

intrafamily violence

An environment of discord and conflict within the family; children who grow up in dysfunctional homes often exhibit delinquent behaviors, having learned at a young age that aggression pays off.

FOCUS on delinquency: Bad Parents or Bad Kids?

Which comes first, bad parents or bad kids? Does parental conflict cause delinquency, or do delinquents create family conflict? Although damaged parent-child relationships are associated with delinquency, it is difficult to assess the relationship. It is often assumed that preexisting family problems cause delinquency, but it may also be true that children who act out put enormous stress on a family. Kids who are conflict prone may actually help to destabilize households. To avoid escalation of a child’s aggression, parents may give in to their children’s demands. The children learn that aggression pays off. Parents may feel overwhelmed and shut their child out of their lives. Adolescent misbehavior may be a precursor of family conflict; strife leads to more adolescent misconduct, producing an endless cycle of family stress and delinquency.

David Huh and colleagues surveyed nearly 500 adolescent girls and found little evidence that poor parenting is a direct cause of children’s misbehavior problems or that it escalates misbehavior. Rather, children’s problem behaviors undermine parenting effectiveness. Increases in adolescent behavior problems, such as substance abuse, resulted in decreases in parental control and support. In contrast, parents’ problems played only a small role in escalating their children’s deviant or behavior problems. Huh suggests it is possible that parents whose children consistently act out may eventually become exasperated and give up on attempts at control.

More recently, Martha Gault-Sherman also found that family conflict may escalate after kids get involved in delinquency and that the parent-child relationship is interactional: while a lack of parental attachment has an effect on delinquency, an adolescent’s delinquency helps decrease parental attachment. Lack of parental involvement with kids may influence delinquency, but involvement declines after kids get in trouble or engage in delinquency. Her findings regarding parental attachment provide strong evidence for the existence of a reciprocal relationship between parenting and delinquency.

Another take on the association between family conflict and children’s delinquency comes from John Paul Wright and Kevin Beaver, who believe there is a genetic component to the relationship. Delinquent kids may reside in conflict-ridden families because they have inherited traits, such as low self-control. Wright and Beaver have found a large body of research showing that impulsivity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—both of which are aspects of low self-control—are inherited. Therefore, what appears to be the effect of bad parenting or family conflict is actually caused by “bad genes.” Because of this genetic effect, the role of parenting may be more complicated than is typically assumed. Parents may help neutralize the effect of inherited traits, or the traits of parents may interact in unique ways with the traits of each of their children. It is possible the genetically determined traits of a child are likely to influence how a parent treats the child and not vice versa. So if family conflict is associated with delinquency, it may be because both parents and children have inherited a genetic disposition toward conflict and antisocial behavior.

CRITICAL THINKING

There may be a bright side to the association between family conflict and delinquency: Sonja Siennick recently found that young adult offenders receive more parental financial assistance than do their nonoffending peers and even their own nonoffending siblings. Offenders’ life circumstances may trigger parental assistance even when kids have been involved in crime; parents do not give up on their troubled teens. Maybe it’s because they feel guilty for causing their kids to engage in a delinquent way of life! What do you think?

SOURCES: Martha Gault-Sherman, “It’s a Two-Way Street: The Bidirectional Relationship between Parenting and Delinquency,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 41:121–145 (2012); Sonja Siennick, “Tough Love? Crime and Parental Assistance in Young Adulthood,” Criminology 49:163–196 (2011); David Huh, Jennifer Tristan, Emily Wade, and Eric Stice, “Does Problem Behavior Elicit Poor Parenting? A Prospective Study of Adolescent Girls,” Journal of Adolescent Research 21:185–204 (2006); John Paul Wright and Kevin Beaver, “Do Parents Matter in Creating Self-Control in Their Children? A Genetically Informed Test of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s Theory of Low Self-Control,” Criminology 43:1169–1202 (2005).

Which is worse, growing up in a home marked by conflict or growing up in a broken home? Research shows that children in both broken homes and high-conflict intact homes were worse off than children in low-conflict, intact families. 54 However, even when parents are divorced, kids who maintain attachments to their parents are less likely to engage in delinquency than those who are alienated and detached. 55 The influence of family conflict on delinquency is explored further in the Focus on Delinquency feature entitled “Bad Parents or Bad Kids?”

Family Competence

Children raised by parents who lack proper parenting skills are more at risk than those whose parents are supportive and effectively control their children in a noncoercive fashion. 56 Some parents are overly permissive and indulgent. They are warm and receptive to their children’s needs, but place few boundaries and establish few rules; their kids are needy and lack self-control. Permissive yet disengaged parenting has been associated with negative behavioral outcomes. 57 In contrast, some parents who are overly authoritarian may lose legitimacy with their offspring despite their controlling efforts. 58

The quality of parenting becomes more acute when kids lack other forms of social support. Research findings have shown that the impact of uninvolved and permissive parenting for problematic youth outcomes is greater in higher-risk neighborhoods. In other words, parental competence is required if a youngster hopes to escape the damage wrought by living in a disorganized lower-class neighborhood. 59 In contrast, children who are properly supervised, especially in disorganized areas, are less likely to succumb to the temptations of the streets. Even children who appear to be at risk are better able to resist involvement in delinquent activity when they report that they can communicate with parents. 60

Parents of beyond-control youngsters have been found to be inconsistent rule-setters, to be less likely to show interest in their children, and to display high levels of hostile detachment. Children who feel inhibited with their parents and refuse to discuss important issues with them are more likely to engage in deviant activities. Kids who report having troubled home lives also exhibit lower levels of self-esteem and are more prone to antisocial behaviors. 61

Parental Efficacy

If bad or incompetent parenting can produce antisocial children, can competent parenting produce an opposite result? Studies show that delinquency will be reduced if both or at least one parent provides the type of structure that integrates children into families, while giving them the ability to assert their individuality and regulate their own behavior. 62 This phenomenon is referred to as parental efficacy . 63 In some cultures emotional support from the mother is critical, whereas in others the father’s support remains the key factor. 64 Adolescents whose parents maintain close relationships with them report less delinquent behavior and substance use regardless of the type of family structure—that is, blended families, same-sex parents, and so on. Kids who reside in homes where parents are warm and giving are more likely to develop personality traits such as a positive self-image that helps them avoid the lure of delinquent behaviors. 65 This finding suggests that the quality of parent-adolescent relationships better predicts adolescent outcomes than family type. 66

parental efficacy

Families in which parents integrate their children into the household unit while helping them assert their individuality and regulate their own behavior.

Inconsistent/Harsh Discipline

Parents of delinquent youths tend to be inconsistent disciplinarians, either overly harsh or extremely lenient. One debate concerns the efficacy of using physical discipline. National surveys find mixed views. Parents who advocate physical punishment believe that it is a necessary aspect of disciplining practices that produce well-behaved children; in contrast, opponents state that physical discipline harms children psychologically and interferes with their development. 67

Opponents of physical punishment believe that it weakens the bond between parents and children, lowers the children’s self-esteem, and undermines their faith in justice. It is possible that physical punishment encourages children to become more secretive and dishonest. 68 Overly strict discipline may have an even more insidious link to antisocial behaviors: abused children have a higher risk of neurological dysfunction than the non-abused, and brain abnormalities have been linked to violent crime. 69

Despite public support for corporal punishment, there is growing evidence of a “violence begetting violence” cycle. Children who are subject to even minimal amounts of physical punishment may be more likely to use violence themselves. 70 Sociologist Murray Straus reviewed physical discipline in a series of surveys and found a powerful relationship between exposure to physical punishment and later aggression. 71

The Parenting Project ( http://www.parentingproject.org/ ) is dedicated to addressing our nation’s crises of child abuse, neglect and abandonment, teen pregnancy, and overall violence by bringing parenting, empathy, and nurturing skills to all school-age children and teens. For more information about these issues, visit the Criminal Justice CourseMate at cengagebrain.com , then access the “Web Links” for this chapter.

Nonviolent societies are also ones in which parents rarely punish their children physically; there is a link between corporal punishment, delinquency, spousal abuse, and adult crime. 72 Research conducted in 10 European countries shows that the degree to which parents and teachers approve of corporal punishment is related to the homicide rate. 73

Inconsistent Supervision

Evidence also exists that inconsistent supervision can promote delinquency. Early research by F. Ivan Nye found that mothers who threatened discipline but failed to carry it out were more likely to have delinquent children than those who were consistent in their discipline. 74

Nye’s early efforts have been supported by research showing a strong association between ineffective or negligent supervision and a child’s involvement in delinquency. 75 The data show that youths who believe their parents care little about their activities are more likely to engage in criminal acts than those who believe their actions will be closely monitored. 76 Kids who are not closely supervised spend more time out in the community with their friends and are more likely to get into trouble. Poorly supervised kids may be more prone to acting impulsively and are therefore less able to employ self-control to restrain their activities. 77

Mothers’ Employment

Parents who closely supervise their children and have close ties with them help reduce the likelihood of adolescent delinquent behavior. 78 When life circumstances prevent or interfere with adequate supervision, delinquent opportunities may increase. Some critics have suggested that even in intact homes, a working mother who is unable to adequately supervise her children provides the opportunity for delinquency.

The association between mothers’ employment and delinquency may be a function of preexisting conditions: mothers may work because they lack financial resources to be stay-at-home caretakers. Environmental conditions may also play a role. In poor neighborhoods that lack collective efficacy, parents cannot call upon neighborhood resources to take up the burden of controlling children. 79

Though there is some evidence that the children of working moms are more prone to delinquency, the issue is far from settled. 80 There are research efforts that have found a mother’s employment may have little effect on youthful misbehavior, especially when the children are adequately supervised. 81 Stacy De Coster found that both the children of mothers who are employed and who hold nontraditional values and those whose mothers are homemakers and hold traditional values are less likely than others to be delinquent if the mothers do not exhibit distress and are able to have emotional bonds with their children. Emotional bonds ultimately protect youths from delinquent peer associations regardless of whether they have working or stay-at-home moms. 82

Resource Dilution

Parents may find it hard to control their children because they have such large families that their resources, such as time, are spread too thin ( resource dilution ). It is also possible that the relationship is indirect, caused by the connection of family size to some external factor; resource dilution has been linked to educational underachievement, long considered a correlate of delinquency. 83 Middle children may suffer because they are most likely to be home when large numbers of siblings are also at home and economic resources are most stretched. Large families are more likely to produce delinquents than small ones, and middle children are more likely to engage in delinquent acts than first- or last-born children.

resource dilution

A condition that occurs when parents have such large families that their resources, such as time and money, are spread too thin, causing lack of familial support and control.

Resource dilution may force some mothers into the workforce in order to support their young children. Critics have suggested that these working mothers are unable to adequately supervise their children, leaving the children prone to delinquency. However, research by Thomas Vander Ven and his associates found that having a mother who is employed has little if any effect on youthful misbehavior, especially if the children are adequately supervised. 84

Family Deviance

A number of studies have found that parental deviance has a powerful influence on delinquent behavior. 85 Children who are socialized in homes where parents drink, take drugs, or commit crimes are more likely to engage in those behaviors themselves. 86 Fathers with a long history of criminality have been found to produce sons who are also likely to get arrested for crimes. 87 The effects can be both devastating and long term: the children of deviant parents produce delinquent children themselves. 88 The Cambridge Youth Survey and the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD), a highly respected longitudinal cohort study conducted in England by David Farrington, has found that a significant number of delinquent youths have criminal fathers. About 8 percent of the sons of noncriminal fathers became chronic offenders, compared to 37 percent of youths with criminal fathers. 89 The CSDD also found that school yard bullying may be both inter- and intragenerational. Bullies have children who bully others, and these “second-generation bullies” grow up to become the fathers of children who are also bullies (see Chapter 10 for more on bullying in the school yard). 90 Thus, one family may have a grandfather, father, and son who are or were school yard bullies. 91

Parental Involvement in the Justice System

The effect of having deviant parents is enhanced if they also suffer arrest, conviction and incarceration. 92 Parental incarceration seems to take the worse toll: children whose parents go to prison are much more likely to be at risk to delinquency and suffer an arrest by age 25 than children of nonincarcerated parents. 93 While it is possible that being separated from parents for any reason is related to delinquency, research shows that children who suffer parental separation due to illness, death, or divorce are less likely to become delinquents than those who were separated due to incarceration. Separation caused by parental imprisonment causes severe and long-term harm. 94

While having an incarcerated parent may result in less supervision and family cohesion, it may be problems that preceded imprisonment—intrafamily conflict and abuse—that have the greatest influence on a child’s subsequent delinquency. 95 When Peggy Giordano studied the lives of kids whose parents were incarcerated, she found that while family problems had preceded the arrest and incarceration, they continued and were exacerbated even after the parent was released. Economically disadvantaged women partnered up with highly antisocial men, and were locked into a pattern of continued drug use and antisocial behaviors. They created a family climate of extreme unpredictability and stress for their children; family problems were intergenerational. Over time, many of these kids growing up in dysfunctional families find themselves in trouble with the law and are doomed to produce another generation of children who face the same sort and level of social problems. 96

Deviant Siblings

Some evidence also exists that having deviant siblings may influence behavior; research shows that if one sibling is a delinquent, there is a significant likelihood that his brother or sister will engage in delinquent behaviors. 97 Not surprisingly, siblings who maintain a warm relationship and feel close to one another are also likely to behave in a similar fashion. If one of these siblings takes drugs and engages in delinquent behavior, so too will his brother or sister. 98 A number of interpretations of these data are possible:

· Siblings who live in the same environment are influenced by similar social and economic factors; it is not surprising that their behavior is similar.

· Deviance is genetically determined, and the traits that cause one sibling to engage in delinquency are shared by his or her brother or sister.

· Deviant siblings grow closer because of shared interests. It is possible that the relationship is due to personal interactions: younger siblings imitate older siblings.

· One of the most common forms of child abuse involves siblings. It is possible that deviant siblings have shared experiences with abuse. Research shows that sibling experiences with violence is significantly related to substance use, delinquency, and aggression. 99

Why Family Deviance Is Intergenerational

Although the intergenerational transmission of deviance has been established, the link is still uncertain. A number of factors may play a role:

· Inheritance/genetic factors. The link between parental deviance and child misbehavior may be genetic. 100 Parents of delinquent youths have been found to suffer neurological conditions linked to antisocial behaviors, and these conditions may be inherited genetically. 101 It is possible that childhood misbehavior is strongly genetically influenced, with little or no environmental or experiential effect. 102 If children behave like their parents, it’s because they share the same genes and not because they have learned to be bad or live in an environment that causes both parental and child misbehaviors.

· Exposure to violence. The children of criminal parents are more likely to have experienced more violence and injury than the norm. Exposure to violence has been linked to negative outcomes. 103

· Substance abuse. Children of drug-abusing parents are more likely to get involved in drug abuse and delinquency than the children of nonabusers. 104 One possibility: parental substance abuse can produce children with neurological impairments that are related to delinquency. 105

· Parenting ability. The link between parental deviance and child delinquency may be shaped by parenting ability. Deviant parents are less likely to have close relationships with their offspring. They are more likely to use overly harsh and inconsistent discipline, a parenting style that has consistently been linked to the onset of delinquent behavior. 106 Parents who themselves have been involved in crime exhibit lower levels of effective parenting and greater association with factors that can impede their parenting abilities (e.g., substance abuse and mental illness). Their children are more likely to have experienced negative effects of ineffective parenting such as abuse and out-of-home placement, factors highly associated with delinquency. 107

· Stigma. The association between parental deviance and children’s delinquency may be related to labeling and stigma. Social control agents may be quick to fix a delinquent label on the children of known law violators, increasing the likelihood that they will pick up an “official” delinquent label. 108 The resulting stigma increases the chances they may fall into a delinquent career.

Helping deal with issues of teen pregnancy and other family issues, Planned Parenthood is the world’s largest and oldest voluntary family planning organization. For more information about Planned Parenthood, visit their website ( http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ ) or go to the Criminal Justice CourseMate at cengagebrain.com , then access the “Web Links” for this chapter.

Delinquent behavior may run in families. Here, Jeremy Jarvis, 13 (left), and his brother Denver Jarvis, 15, appear in juvenile court in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, at the Broward County Courthouse. The boys were charged with aggravated battery for participating in setting a 15-year-old boy on fire. Jeremy avoided incarceration, but Denver pleaded no contest in February 2012 to second-degree attempted murder and was sentenced to eight years in prison, a year of house arrest, and 21 years of probation. In 2013, his sentence was reduced to 10 years of probation. If deviance does run in families, do you think it’s a product of the environment, socialization, or genetics?

Child Abuse and Neglect

In one of New York City’s most notorious child abuse cases, a 7-year-old Brooklyn girl, Nixzmary Brown, was horribly tortured and abused before being killed by a severe blow to the head. 109 The suspects in the case: Nixzaliz Santiago, her mother, and Cesar Rodriguez, her stepfather. At the time of her death, Nixzmary weighed only 36 pounds and had been tied to a chair and forced to use a litter box for a toilet. According to her mother, Rodriguez, who beat the girl regularly, pushed her head under the bathtub faucet after stripping her naked, beat her, and tied her to a stool. Then he listened to music in another room. Some time later, the mother got up the nerve to go to her daughter and found that the little girl’s body was cold. Law enforcement agents said that the abuse the 7-year-old experienced was among the worst they had ever witnessed. Autopsy reports revealed she had cuts and bruises all over her body, two black eyes, and a skull that was hit so hard her brain bled. Both Nixzmary’s mother and stepfather got long prison sentences for their crimes.

In the aftermath of this terrible crime, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the press, “How can anybody fathom what these parents did to this young, 7-year-old girl? It sort of defies description.” Tragically, Nixzmary’s situation was known to authorities for some time before her death. The city’s Administration for Children’s Services had received two complaints about the family. The first, in 2004, was found to be unsubstantiated, and the second occurred on December 1, 2005, when the young girl showed up at school with a black eye. Yet little was done to help her or remove her from her brutal home. When asked why they did not get a court order, child welfare authorities blamed the parents for being uncooperative, ignoring repeated phone calls from caseworkers and turning them away at the door. Still, the head of New York’s welfare system couldn’t explain why caseworkers didn’t get a warrant to enter the house, nor did they attempt to take Nixzmary from home and place her in foster care. After her death, New York passed Nixzmary’s Law, which increased the sentence for an adult convicted of torturing a child, changing the maximum sentence to life in prison. 110

Nixzmary’s horrible death is tragically not unique. Thousands of children are physically abused or neglected by their parents or other adults each year and this treatment has serious consequences for their behavior over the life course. Because of this topic’s importance, the remainder of this chapter is devoted to the issues of child abuse and neglect and their relationship with delinquent behavior.

Historical Foundation

Parental abuse and neglect are not modern phenomena. Maltreatment of children has occurred throughout history. Some concern for the negative effects of such maltreatment was voiced in the eighteenth century in the United States, but concerted efforts to deal with the problem did not begin until 1874.

In that year, residents of a New York City apartment building reported to public health nurse Etta Wheeler that a child in one of the apartments was being abused by her stepmother. The nurse found a young child named Mary Ellen Wilson who had been repeatedly beaten and was malnourished from a diet of bread and water. Even though the child was seriously ill, the police agreed that the law entitled the parents to raise Mary Ellen as they saw fit. The New York City Department of Charities claimed it had no custody rights over Mary Ellen.

According to legend, Mary Ellen’s removal from her parents had to be arranged through the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) on the ground that she was a member of the animal kingdom. The truth, however, is less sensational: Mary Ellen’s case was heard by a judge. Because the child needed protection, she was placed in an orphanage. 111 The SPCA was actually founded the following year. 112

Little research into the problems of maltreated children occurred before that of C. Henry Kempe, of the University of Colorado. In 1962, Kempe reported the results of a survey of medical and law-enforcement agencies that indicated the child abuse rate was much higher than had been thought. He coined a term, battered child syndrome , which he applied to cases of nonaccidental injury of children by their parents or guardians. 113

battered child syndrome

Nonaccidental physical injury of children by their parents or guardians.

Defining Abuse and Neglect

Kempe’s pioneering work has been expanded in a more generic expression of child abuse that includes neglect as well as physical abuse. Specifically, it describes any physical or emotional trauma to a child for which no reasonable explanation, such as an accident, can be found. Child abuse is generally seen as a pattern of behavior rather than a single act. The effects of a pattern of behavior are cumulative. That is, the longer the abuse continues, the more severe the effect will be. 114

child abuse

Any physical, emotional, or sexual trauma to a child, including neglecting to give proper care and attention, for which no reasonable explanation can be found.

Although the terms child abuse and neglect are sometimes used interchangeably, they represent different forms of maltreatment. Neglect refers to deprivations children suffer at the hands of their parents (lack of food, shelter, health care, love). Abuse is a more overt form of aggression against the child, one that often requires medical attention. The distinction between the terms is often unclear because, in many cases, both abuse and neglect occur simultaneously. What are the forms that abuse and neglect may take?

neglect

Passive neglect by a parent or guardian, depriving children of food, shelter, health care, and love.

· Physical abuse includes throwing, shooting, stabbing, burning, drowning, suffocating, biting, or deliberately disfiguring a child. Included within this category is shaken-baby syndrome (SBS), a form of child abuse affecting between 1,200 and 1,600 children every year. SBS is a collection of signs and symptoms resulting from violently shaking an infant or child. 115

· Physical neglect results from parents’ failure to provide adequate food, shelter, or medical care for their children, as well as failure to protect them from physical danger.

· Emotional abuse or neglect is manifested by constant criticism and rejection of the child. 116 Those who suffer emotional abuse have significantly lower self-esteem as adults. 117

· Emotional neglect includes inadequate nurturing, inattention to a child’s emotional development, and lack of concern about maladaptive behavior.

· Abandonment refers to the situation in which parents leave their children with the intention of severing the parent-child relationship. 118

abandonment

Parents physically leave their children with the intention of completely severing the parent-child relationship.

· Sexual abuse refers to the exploitation of children through rape, incest, and molestation by parents, family members, friends, or legal guardians. Sexual abuse can vary from rewarding children for sexual behavior that is inappropriate for their level of development to using force or the threat of force for the purposes of sex. It can involve children who are aware of the sexual content of their actions and others too young to have any idea what their actions mean.

The Effects of Abuse

Regardless of how abuse is defined, the effects can be devastating. Mental health and delinquency experts have found that abused kids experience mental and social problems across their life span, ranging from substance abuse to possession of a damaged personality. 119 Children who have experienced some form of maltreatment suffer devalued sense of self, mistrust of others, a tendency to perceive hostility in others in situations where the intentions of others are ambiguous, and a tendency to generate antagonistic solutions to social conflicts. Victims of abuse are prone to suffer mental illness, such as dissociative identity disorder (DID) (sometimes known as multiple personality disorder [MPD]); research shows that child abuse is present in the histories of the vast majority of DID subjects. 120 Children who experience maltreatment are at increased risk for adverse health effects and behaviors across the life course, including smoking, alcoholism, drug abuse, eating disorders, severe obesity, depression, suicide, sexual promiscuity, and certain chronic diseases. 121 Maltreatment during infancy or early childhood can cause brain impairment, leading to physical, mental, and emotional problems such as sleep disturbances, panic disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Brain dysfunction is particularly common among victims of shaken-baby syndrome. About 25 to 30 percent of infant victims with SBS die from their injuries; nonfatal consequences of SBS include varying degrees of visual impairment (e.g., blindness), motor impairment (e.g., cerebral palsy), and cognitive impairments. 122

Psychologists suggest that maltreatment encourages children to use aggression as a means of solving problems and prevents them from feeling empathy for others. It diminishes their ability to cope with stress and makes them vulnerable to the violence in the culture. Abused children have fewer positive interactions with peers, are less well liked, and are more likely to have disturbed social interactions. 123 Not surprisingly, recent research has found that juvenile female prostitutes more often than not came from homes in which abuse, both physical and substance, was present. 124

The Extent of Child Abuse

Estimating the extent of child abuse is almost impossible. Many victims are so young that they have not learned to communicate. Some are too embarrassed or afraid to do so. Many incidents occur behind closed doors, and even when another adult witnesses inappropriate or criminal behavior, the adult may not want to get involved in a “family matter.” Indications of the severity of the problem came from a groundbreaking 1980 survey conducted by sociologists Richard Gelles and Murray Straus. 125 Gelles and Straus estimated that between 1.4 and 1.9 million children in the United States were subject to physical abuse from their parents. This abuse was rarely a one-time act: the average number of assaults per year was 10.5, and the median was 4.5. Gelles and Straus also found that 16 percent of the couples in their sample reported spousal abuse; 50 percent of the multichild families reported attacks between siblings; 20 percent of the families reported incidents in which children attacked parents. 126

The Gelles and Straus survey was a milestone in identifying child abuse as a national phenomenon. Subsequent surveys conducted in 1985 and 1992 indicated that the incidence of severe violence toward children had declined. 127 One reason was that parental approval of corporal punishment, which stood at 94 percent in 1968, decreased to 68 percent by 1994. 128 Recognition of the problem may have helped moderate cultural values and awakened parents to the dangers of physically disciplining children. Nonetheless, more than 1 million children were still being subjected to severe violence annually. If the definition of “severe abuse” used in the survey had included hitting with objects such as a stick or a belt, the number of child victims would have been closer to 7 million per year.

Monitoring Abuse

Since the pioneering efforts by Gelles and Straus, the Department of Health and Human Services has been monitoring the extent of child maltreatment through its annual survey of Child Protective Services (CPS). 129 The DHHS survey counts victims in two ways:

· The duplicate count of child victims counts a child each time he or she was found to be a victim.

· The unique count of child victims counts a child only once regardless of the number of times he or she was found to be a victim during the reporting year.

The last data available (2011) found that, using a duplicate count, about 3.7 million children received a CPS investigation or 48 children per 1,000 children in the population. Using a unique count, nearly 3 million children received a CPS response, at a rate of 40 children per 1,000 children in the population. Typically, about 20 percent of the unique investigations discover that a child has been victimized in some fashion. This means that about 680,000 were substantiated victims of child abuse or neglect; of these more than 50,000 were the victim of multiple (duplicate) offenses in a single year.

Though these figures seem staggering, the number and rate of abuse has actually been in decline. Fifteen years ago, more than 1 million children were identified as victims of abuse or neglect nationwide, and the rate of victimization of children was approximately 15 per 1,000 children; today the 700,000 substantiated cases of child neglect/abuse amount to a rate of about 10 per 1,000 children under 18. While these results are encouraging, trends in reported child maltreatment may be more reflective of the effect budgetary cutbacks have on CPS’s ability to monitor, record, and investigate reports of abuse than an actual decline in child abuse rates (see Figure 8.4 ).

figure 8.4: Child Abuse Reporting Outcomes

SOURCE: US Department of Health and Human Services, “Child Maltreatment, 2011,” http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm11.pdf#page=9 (accessed July 2013).

The Nature of Abuse

What do the data tell us about the nature of abuse? There is a direct association between age and abuse: victimization rates are higher for younger children than for their older brothers and sisters. The youngest children are the most vulnerable to maltreatment. About half of all victims are 5 and under; about two-thirds of all abuse victims are under 7 years old. In general, the rate and percentage of victimization decrease with age.

While boys and girls have an almost equal chance of being victimized, there are racial differences in the abuse rate. African American children, Pacific Islander children, and American Indian or Alaska Native children suffer child abuse rates (per 1,000 children) far higher than European American children, Hispanic children, and Asian American children.

Four-fifths of victims were maltreated by a parent either acting alone or with someone else. Nearly two-fifths of victims were maltreated by their mother acting alone, one-fifth of victims were maltreated by their father acting alone, and one-fifth of victims were maltreated by both parents. About 13 percent of victims were maltreated by a perpetrator who was not a parent of the child.

Child abuse has been linked to violence and delinquency. There have been a number of tragic cases of abuse, none more notorious than the one involving former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, shown here being taken from the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. Sandusky was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for molesting scores of young boys in the child sexual abuse scandal that brought shame to Penn State and led to coach Joe Paterno’s downfall.

The most common form of abuse is neglect (78 percent), followed by physical abuse (17 percent) and sexual abuse (9 percent). About 10 percent of the child victims fall into the “other” category, which consists of such conditions as “abandonment,” “threats of harm to the child,” or “congenital drug addiction.”

Sexual Abuse

In a case that sent shock waves around the nation, Gerald Arthur “Jerry” Sandusky, a football coach with a 30-year career at Penn State University, was indicted and convicted on charges that he was a serial molester. Sandusky used his position of power and trust (he was Assistant Coach of the Year in 1986 and 1999) to found the Second Mile, a nonprofit charity serving underprivileged and at-risk youth in Pennsylvania. Sandusky met his victims through the Second Mile and had forced sexual relations with them on the Penn State campus even after he had retired from football. Although officials at Penn State found out about the abuse, they did not alert law enforcement officials, fearing the publicity would embarrass the university. On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of the 48 charges and was sentenced 30 to 60 years in prison. 130

The Sandusky case and others like it are particularly serious because adolescent victims of sexual abuse are particularly at risk for stress and anxiety. 131 Kids who have undergone traumatic sexual experiences have been found to suffer psychological deficits later. 132 Many run away to escape their environment, which puts them at risk for juvenile arrest and involvement with the justice system. 133 Others suffer posttraumatic mental problems, including acute stress disorders, depression, eating disorders, nightmares, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and other psychological problems. 134 Stress, however, does not end in childhood. Children who are psychologically, sexually, or physically abused are more likely to suffer low self-esteem and be more suicidal as adults. 135 They are also placed at greater risk to be reabused as adults than those who escaped childhood victimization. 136 The reabused carry higher risks for psychological and physical problems, ranging from sexual promiscuity to increased HIV infection rates. 137 Abuse as a child may lead to despair, depression, and even homelessness as adults. One study of homeless women found that they were much more likely than other women to report childhood physical abuse, childhood sexual abuse, adult physical assault, previous sexual assault in adulthood, and a history of mental health problems. 138

Extent of Sexual Abuse

Attempts to determine the extent of sexual abuse indicate that perhaps 1 in 10 boys and 1 in 3 girls have been the victims of some form of sexual exploitation. Richard J. Estes and Neil Alan Weiner, two researchers at the School of Social Welfare at the University of Pennsylvania, found that the problem of child sexual abuse is much more widespread than was previously believed or documented. Their research indicated that each year in the United States 325,000 children are subjected to some form of sexual exploitation, which includes sexual abuse, prostitution, use in pornography, and molestation by adults. Most are middle-class European Americans. Equal numbers of boys and girls are involved, but the activities of boys generally receive less attention from authorities. Many of these kids are runaways (more than 120,000), whereas others have fled mental hospitals and foster homes. More than 50,000 are thrown out of their home by a parent or guardian. 139

Although sexual abuse is still quite prevalent, the number of reported cases has been in significant decline. 140 These data may either mean that the actual number of cases is truly in decline or that social service professionals are failing to recognize abuse cases because of overwork and understaffing.

Causes of Child Abuse and Neglect

Why do people abuse and hurt children? Maltreatment of children is a complex problem with neither a single cause nor a single solution. It cuts across racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic lines. Abusive parents cannot be categorized by sex, age, or educational level.

Of all factors associated with child abuse, three are discussed most often: (1) parents who themselves suffered abuse tend to abuse their own children; (2) the presence of an unrelated adult increases the risk of abuse; and (3) isolated and alienated families tend to become abusive. A cyclical pattern of violence seems to be perpetuated from one generation to another. Evidence indicates that a large number of abused and neglected children grow into adulthood with a tendency to engage in violent behavior. The behavior of abusive parents can often be traced to negative experiences in their own childhood—physical abuse, emotional neglect, and incest. These parents become unable to separate their own childhood traumas from their relationships with their children. Abusive parents often have unrealistic perceptions of normal development. When their children are unable to act appropriately—when they cry or strike their parents—the parents may react in an abusive manner. 141

Parents may also become abusive if they are isolated from friends, neighbors, or relatives. Many abusive parents describe themselves as alienated from their extended families, and they lack close relationships with persons who could provide help in stressful situations. 142 The relationship between alienation and abuse may be particularly acute in homes where there has been divorce or separation, or in which parents have never actually married; abusive punishment in single-parent homes has been found to be twice that of two-parent families. 143 Parents who are unable to cope with stressful events—divorce, financial stress, recurring mental illness, drug addiction—are most at risk. 144

Substance Abuse and Child Abuse

Abusive families suffer from severe stress, and it is therefore not surprising that they frequently harbor members who turn to drugs and alcohol. 145 Among confirmed cases of child maltreatment, 40 percent involve the use of alcohol or other drugs. Alcohol and other substances may act as disinhibitors, lessening impulse control and allowing parents to behave abusively. Children in this environment often demonstrate behavioral problems and are diagnosed as having conduct disorders. This may result in provocative behavior. Increased stress resulting from a parent’s preoccupation with drugs combined with behavioral problems exhibited by the child increases the likelihood of maltreatment. Frequently, these parents suffer from depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. They live in an atmosphere of stress and family conflict. Children raised in such households are themselves more likely to have problems with alcohol and other drugs. 146

Stepparents and Abuse

Research indicates that stepchildren share a greater risk for abuse than do biological offspring. 147 Stepparents may have less emotional attachment to the children of another. Often the biological parent has to choose between the new mate and the child, sometimes even becoming an accomplice in the abuse. 148

Stepchildren are overrepresented in cases of familicide , mass murders in which a spouse and one or more children are slain. It is also more common for fathers who kill their biological children to commit suicide than those who kill stepchildren, an indication that the latter act is motivated by hostility and not despair. 149

familicide

Mass murders in which a spouse and one or more children are slain.

Social Class and Abuse

Surveys indicate a high rate of reported abuse and neglect among people in lower economic classes. Children from families with a household income of less than $15,000 per year experience more abuse than children living in more affluent homes. Child care workers indicate that most of their clients either live in poverty or face increased financial stress because of unemployment and economic recession. These findings suggest that parental maltreatment of children is predominantly a lower-class problem. Is this conclusion valid?

One view is that low-income families, especially those headed by a single parent, are often subject to greater environmental stress and have fewer resources to deal with such stress than families with higher incomes. 150 A relationship seems to exist between the burdens of raising a child without adequate resources and the use of excessive force. Self-report surveys do show that indigent parents are more likely than affluent parents to hold attitudes that condone physical chastisement of children. 151

In a well-known case, Hillary Adams, shown here at age 23, uploaded a video to the Internet of her father, Judge William Adams, beating her when she was 16. The case drew national attention to parental violence. The judge was later suspended for a year, with pay. Ironically, Adams had dealt with at least 349 family law cases in the year before his suspension, nearly 50 of which involved state caseworkers seeking to determine whether parents were fit to raise their children. After serving his suspension, the judge returned to the bench; the state will no longer file abuse cases in his court.

Higher rates of maltreatment in low-income families reflect the stress caused by the limited resources that lower-class parents have to help them raise their children; in contrast, middle-class parents devote a smaller percentage of their total resources to raising a family. 152 This burden becomes especially onerous in families with emotionally and physically handicapped children. Stressed-out parents may consider special-needs children a drain on finances with little potential for future success; research finds that children with disabilities are maltreated at a rate almost double that of other children. 153

The Child Protection System: Philosophy and Practice

The oldest federal agency for children, the Children’s Bureau (CB), is part of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, a section of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), under the Department of Health and Human Services. It is responsible for assisting states in the delivery of child welfare services, services designed to protect children and strengthen families. For more information about these subjects, visit their website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb , or go to the Criminal Justice CourseMate at cengagebrain.com , then access the “Web Links” for this chapter.

For most of our nation’s history, courts have assumed that parents have the right to bring up their children as they see fit. In the 2000 case Troxel v. Granville , the Supreme Court ruled that the due process clause of the Constitution protects against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests, including parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children. 154 If the care a child receives falls below reasonable standards, the state may take action to remove a child from the home and place her or him in a less threatening environment. In these extreme circumstances, the rights of both parents and children are constitutionally protected. In the cases of Lassiter v. Department of Social Services and Santosky v. Kramer , the Supreme Court recognized the child’s right to be free from parental abuse and set down guidelines for a termination-of-custody hearing, including the right to legal representation. 155 States provide a guardian ad litem (a lawyer appointed by the court to look after the interests of those who do not have the capacity to assert their own rights). States also ensure confidentiality of reporting. 156

Troxel v. Granville

The Supreme Court ruled that the due process clause of the Constitution protects against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests, including parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.

Santosky v. Kramer

The US Supreme Court recognized the child’s right to be free from parental abuse and set down guidelines for a termination-of-custody hearing, including the right to legal representation.

Although child protection agencies have been dealing with abuse and neglect since the late nineteenth century, recent awareness of the problem has prompted judicial authorities to take increasingly bold steps to ensure the safety of children. 157 The assumption that the parent-child relationship is inviolate has been challenged. In 1974, Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), which provides funds to states to bolster their services for maltreated children and their parents. 158 The act provides federal funding to states in support of prevention, investigation, and treatment. It also provides grants to public agencies and nonprofit organizations for demonstration programs.

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act has been the impetus for the states to improve the legal frameworks of their child protection systems. Abusive parents are subject to prosecution under statutes against assault, battery, and homicide.

Investigating and Reporting Abuse

Maltreatment of children can easily be hidden from public view. Although state laws require doctors, teachers, and others who work with children to report suspected cases to child protection agencies, many maltreated children are out of the law’s reach, because they are too young for school or because their parents do not take them to a doctor or a hospital. Parents abuse their children in private and, even when confronted, often accuse their children of lying or blame the children’s medical problems on accidents. Social service agencies must find more effective ways to locate abused children and handle such cases once found. One way is through legal change. Today, statutes in approximately 18 states and Puerto Rico require any person who suspects child abuse or neglect to report it to child protective services (CPS) workers. 159

Once reported to a child protection agency, the case is screened by an intake worker and then turned over to an investigative caseworker. In some jurisdictions, if CPS substantiates a report, the case will likely be referred to a law enforcement agency that will be responsible for investigating the case, collecting evidence that can later be used in court proceedings. If the caseworker determines that the child is in imminent danger of severe harm, the caseworker may immediately remove the child from the home. A court hearing must be held shortly after to approve custody. Stories abound of children erroneously taken from their homes, but it is much more likely that these “gatekeepers” will consider cases unfounded and take no action. Among the most common reasons for screening out cases is that the reporting party is involved in a child custody case, despite the research showing that the risk of abuse increases significantly in the aftermath of divorce. 160 One of the success stories is discussed in the Case Profile “Ayden’s Story.”

Even when there is compelling evidence of abuse, most social service agencies will try to involve the family in voluntary treatment. Postinvestigation services are offered on a voluntary basis by child welfare agencies to ensure the safety of children. These services address the safety of the child and are usually based on an assessment of the family’s strengths, weaknesses, and needs. Examples of postinvestigation services include individual counseling, case management, family-based services (services provided to the entire family, such as counseling or family support), in-home services, foster care services, and court services. Each year more than 60 percent of victims receive postinvestigation services.

Case managers do periodic follow-ups to determine if treatment plans are being followed. If parents are uncooperative, or if the danger to the children is so great that they must be removed from the home, a complaint will be filed in the criminal, family, or juvenile court system. To protect the child, the court could then issue temporary orders for placing the child in shelter care during investigation, providing services, or prohibiting suspected abusers from having contact with the child.

Though most state interventions are handled informally and through treatment, some result in prison sentences. Here, a Pennsylvania State Trooper escorts Tammy Jo Bohon from her home in Point Marion, Pennsylvania, to an awaiting patrol car. Bohon and her husband, Robert David Dodson, were arrested and charged with homicide after the body of their 15-month-old daughter Madison was found starved to death in their Fayette County home, which was filled with animal and human feces. The couple’s seven other children were placed in protective custody. Madison had a medical condition that required her to use a gastric feeding tube, which became dislodged while her mother was away from the house smoking crack. Dodson and Bohon pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and were sentenced to four-and-a-half to nine years in prison.

The Process of State Intervention

Although procedures vary from state to state, most follow a similar legal process once a social service agency files a court petition alleging abuse or neglect. 161 Figure 8.5 diagrams this process.

figure 8.5: The Process of State Intervention in Cases of Abuse and Neglect

If the allegation of abuse is confirmed, the child may be placed in protective custody. Most state statutes require that the court be notified “promptly” or “immediately” if the child is removed; some states, including Arkansas, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, have gone as far as requiring that no more than 12 hours elapse before official action is taken. If the child has not been removed from the home, state authorities are given more time to notify the court of suspected abuse. Some states set a limit of 30 days to take action, whereas others mandate that state action take no more than 20 days once the case has been investigated.

When an abuse or neglect petition is prosecuted, an advisement hearing (also called a preliminary protective hearing or emergency custody hearing) is held. The court will review the facts of the case, determine whether permanent removal of the child is justified, and notify the parents of existing charges. Parents have the right to counsel in all cases of abuse and neglect, and many states require the court to appoint an attorney for the child as well. If the parents admit the allegations, the court enters a consent decree, and the case is continued for disposition. Approximately half of all cases are settled by admission at the advisement hearing. If the parents deny the petition, an attorney is appointed for the child and the case is continued for a pretrial conference .

advisement hearing

A preliminary protective or temporary custody hearing in which the court will review the facts, determine whether removal of the child is justified, and notify parents of the charges against them.

pretrial conference

The attorney for the social services agency presents an overview of the case, and a plea bargain or negotiated settlement can be agreed to in a consent decree.

At the pretrial conference, the attorney for the social service agency presents an overview of the case and the evidence. Such matters as admissibility of photos and written reports are settled. At this point the attorneys can negotiate a settlement of the case, in which the parents accept a treatment plan detailing:

· The types of services that the child and the child’s family will receive, such as parenting classes, mental health or substance abuse treatment, and family counseling

· Reunification goals, including visitation schedules and a target date for the child’s return home

· Concurrent plans for alternative permanent placement options should reunification goals not be met

case profile: Ayden’s Story

AYDEN is a 15-year-old male referred to the county juvenile justice system for disorderly conduct in the family home and possession of marijuana. Ayden and his family had been evicted from their apartment after the last of many police calls and the family was staying at a local homeless shelter. There was a history of domestic violence in the home as well as other contacts with law enforcement, generally related to family discord.

Ayden’s father and mother both had histories of significant alcohol abuse, and Ayden had spent part of his childhood in and out of foster homes due to chronic neglect issues. The local child protection agency had assessed the home on a number of occasions, and records indicated that the living conditions in the home were often found to be deplorable. Ayden and his siblings would be removed from the home while it was being cleaned up—but would then return home again. Ayden’s school records indicated that teachers had been concerned about his hygiene as well as a lack of regular attendance. Ayden’s grades were poor overall and he appeared unmotivated academically. Ayden’s teachers reported that he was pleasant in the classroom and did not demonstrate any behavioral concerns at school.

Ayden’s parents reported to the juvenile justice social worker that Ayden was defiant and belligerent toward them. They described him as “angry all the time” and “unwilling to follow any rules.” Although the family was staying at the local homeless shelter, the parents reported that Ayden’s whereabouts were unknown to them. They suspected that he was staying with friends but were not really sure. They stated that Ayden was “almost an adult” and “at this point he can do what he wants.” They both denied their long-term issue was alcohol and appeared to have very little insight regarding the family system and issues.

Ayden was indeed staying with friends as well as continuing to attend school. The social worker made contact with Ayden at school and began to help him open up about his personal and family situation. Upon further discussion with Ayden, he disclosed a history of physical abuse by both his parents as well as the neglect. Ayden acknowledged his frustration toward his parents and indicated willingness for treatment related to his anger management and drug use concerns. Due to the new child maltreatment reports as well as the delinquency petition, Ayden was placed in a treatment foster home where he received a number of needed services and interventions. The treatment foster parents who were chosen for Ayden had successfully worked with many young men with similar backgrounds and delinquent behavior. The foster parents and Ayden also received additional weekly support in the home, which included addressing behavioral issues, school concerns, family relationships, substance abuse, and anger management.

Within six months of placement, Ayden’s grades were improving and he was doing well in his outpatient treatment programs for anger management and substance use. He reported feeling more stable and less focused on his parent’s chronic alcohol issues. He also reported feeling relieved that he lived in a home with significantly less chaos. To date, Ayden has not had any further referrals for delinquent behavior. Ayden’s parents were repeatedly offered a number of services but to date have refused to engage with Ayden’s treatment or participate in their own.

CRITICAL THINKING

After reading Ayden’s story, what changes would you advocate for the foster care system to improve outcomes?

About three-fourths of the cases that go to pretrial conference are settled by a consent decree. About 85 out of every 100 petitions filed are settled at either the advisement hearing or the pretrial conference. Of the 15 remaining cases, 5 are generally settled before trial. Usually no more than 10 cases out of every 100 actually reach the trial stage of the process. This trial is an adversarial hearing designed to prove the state’s allegations.

Disposition and Review

The most crucial part of an abuse or neglect proceeding is the disposition hearing . The social service agency presents its case plan, which includes recommendations such as conditions for returning the child to the parents or a visitation plan if the child is to be taken permanently from the parents. An agreement is reached by which the parents commit themselves to following the state orders. Between one-half and two-thirds of all convicted parents will be required to serve time in incarceration; almost half will be assigned to a form of treatment. Concerning the children, some may be placed in temporary care; in other cases, parental rights are terminated and the child is placed in the custody of the child protective service. Legal custody can then be assigned to a relative or some other person.

disposition hearing

The social service agency presents its case plan and recommendations for care of the child and treatment of the parents, including incarceration and counseling or other treatment.

Even if criminal charges are not filed, the perpetrator’s name may be placed on a state child maltreatment registry if abuse or neglect is confirmed. A registry is a central database that collects information about maltreated children and individuals who are found to have abused or neglected those children. These registries are usually confidential and used for internal child protective purposes only. However, they may be used in background checks for certain professions that involve working with children to protect children from contact with individuals who are abusers. 162

In making their decisions, courts are guided by three interests: the role of the parents, protection for the child, and the responsibility of the state. Frequently, these interests conflict. In fact, at times even the interests of the two parents are not in harmony. The state attempts to balance the parents’ natural right to control their child’s upbringing with the child’s right to grow into adulthood free from harm. This is referred to as the balancing-of-the-interests approach .

balancing-of-the-interests approach

Efforts of the courts to balance the parents’ natural right to raise a child with the child’s right to grow into adulthood free from physical abuse or emotional harm.

Periodically, review hearings are held to determine if the conditions of the case plan are being met. Parents who fail to cooperate are warned that they may lose their parental rights. Most abuse and neglect cases are concluded within a year. Either the parents lose their rights and the child is given a permanent foster care or other type of placement, or the child is returned to the parents and the court’s jurisdiction ends.

review hearings

Periodic meetings to determine whether the conditions of the case plan for an abused child are being met by the parents or guardians of the child.

Foster Care

Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are removed from their homes due to parental absence, deviance, conflict, or incompetence. 163 Many of these kids have already experienced multiple threats to their healthy development and safety. And to make matters worse, these vulnerable children then enter a fragmented foster care system that lacks the necessary resources, technical proficiency, and interagency coordination to provide families with needed services and supports. Various aspects of the current foster care population are noteworthy:

foster care

Placing a child in the temporary care of a family other than its own as a result of state intervention into problems within the birth family; can be used as a temporary shelter while a permanent adoption effort is being completed.

· African American children make up the largest proportion of children in care.

· Over one-quarter of all children in care are under age 5.

· Most children are placed in nonrelative foster homes, but substantial numbers are also placed with relatives or in group homes or institutions.

· Of those children exiting care, most are reunited with their birth parents or primary caretakers, or are adopted.

· A child is more likely to enter care due to neglect than due to physical, sexual, and psychological abuse combined. 164

Living within the foster care system can be a trying and emotionally traumatic experience for children. It is estimated that somewhere between 30 and 80 percent of children in foster care exhibit emotional and/or behavioral problems. Many are traumatized by their experiences before entering foster care, while others are troubled by the foster care experience itself. Within three months of placement, many children exhibit signs of depression, aggression, or withdrawal. Children in foster care are often forced to change schools, placing them at risk educationally. It comes as no surprise that many youths leaving foster care end up in jail or on public assistance. 165

Are kids better off being taken from a conflict-ridden or otherwise troubled home care situation and placed in foster care? A recent study using the advanced analytic tools of applied economics shows that children faced with two options—being allowed to stay at home or being placed into foster care—have generally better life outcomes when they remain with their families. Economist Joseph Doyle used a randomized design and found that children on the margin of foster care placement have better employment, delinquency, and teen motherhood outcomes when they remain at home. Among the findings: 166

· Only 14 percent of young adults were arrested at least once when staying at home, and 44 percent were arrested when going to foster care.

· Only 33 percent became teen mothers when staying at home and 56 percent became mothers when going to foster care.

· At least 33 percent held a job for at least three months when staying at home and only 20 percent held a job for at least three months when going to foster care.

This outcome is significant considering the number of kids in foster care today. Doyle’s research suggests that keeping families intact will produce better results, and therefore a greater portion of the social welfare budget should be spent on family preservation.

The Abused Child in Court

One of the most significant problems associated with abuse cases is the trauma a child must go through in a court hearing. Children get confused and frightened and may change their testimony. Much controversy has arisen over the accuracy of children’s reports of physical and sexual abuse, resulting in hung juries. Prosecutors and experts have been accused of misleading children or eliciting incriminating testimony. In what probably is the best-known case, the McMartin Day Care case in California, children told not only of being sexually abused but also of being forced to participate in bizarre satanic rituals during which the McMartins mutilated animals and forced the children to touch corpses in hidden underground passageways. Prosecutors decided not to press forward after two trials ended in deadlock. Some jurors, when interviewed after the verdict, said that although they believed that children had been abused, the interviewing techniques used by prosecutors had been so suggestive that they had not been able to discern what really happened. 167

State jurisdictions have instituted procedures to minimize the trauma to the child. Most have enacted legislation allowing videotaped statements or interviews with child witnesses taken at a preliminary hearing or at a formal deposition to be admissible in court. Videotaped testimony spares child witnesses the trauma of testifying in open court. States that allow videotaped testimony usually put some restrictions on its use. Some prohibit the government from calling the child to testify at trial if the videotape is used; some states require a finding that the child is “medically unavailable” because of the trauma of the case before videotaping can be used; some require that the defendant be present during the videotaping; a few specify that the child not be able to see or hear the defendant.

Most of the states now allow a child’s testimony to be given on closed-circuit television (CCTV). The child can view the judge and attorneys, and the courtroom participants can observe the child. The standards for CCTV testimony vary widely. Some states, such as New Hampshire, assume that any child witness under age 12 would benefit from not having to appear in court. Others require an independent examination by a mental health professional to determine whether there is a “compelling need” for CCTV testimony.

In addition to innovative methods of testimony, children in sexual abuse cases have been allowed to use anatomically correct dolls to demonstrate happenings that they cannot describe verbally. The Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 allows children to use these dolls when testifying in federal courts; at least eight states have passed similar legislation. 168 Similarly, states have relaxed their laws of evidence to allow out-of-court statements by the child to a social worker, teacher, or police officer to be used as evidence (such statements would otherwise be considered hearsay ). Typically, corroboration is required to support these statements if the child does not also testify.

hearsay

Out-of-court statements made by one person and recounted in court by another; such statements are generally not allowed as evidence except in child abuse cases in which a child’s statements to social workers, teachers, or police may be admissible.

The prevalence of sexual abuse cases has created new problems for the justice system. Often accusations are made in conjunction with marital disputes. The fear is growing that children may become pawns in custody battles; the mere suggestion of sexual abuse is enough to affect the outcome of a divorce action. The justice system must develop techniques that can get at the truth without creating a lifelong scar on the child’s psyche.

Legal Issues

A number of cases have been brought before the Supreme Court testing the right of children to present evidence at trial using nontraditional methods. Two issues stand out. One is the ability of physicians and mental health professionals to testify about statements made to them by children, especially when the children are incapable of testifying. The second concerns the way children testify in court.

In a 1992 case, White v. Illinois , the Supreme Court ruled that the state’s attorney is not required to produce young victims at trial or to demonstrate the reason why they were unavailable to serve as witnesses. 169 White involved statements given by the child to the child’s babysitter and mother, a doctor, a nurse, and a police officer concerning the alleged assailant in a sexual assault case. The prosecutor twice tried to call the child to testify, but both times the 4-year-old experienced emotional difficulty and could not appear in court. The outcome hinged solely on the testimony of the five witnesses.

By allowing others to testify as to what the child said, White removed the requirement that prosecutors produce child victims in court. This facilitates the prosecution of child abusers in cases where a court appearance by a victim would prove too disturbing or where the victim is too young to understand the court process. 170 The Court noted that statements made to doctors during medical examinations or those made when a victim is upset carry more weight than ones made after careful reflection. The Court ruled that such statements can be repeated during trial, because the circumstances in which they were made could not be duplicated simply by having the child testify to them in court.

In-Court Statements

Children who are victims of sexual or physical abuse often make poor witnesses. Yet their testimony may be crucial. In a 1988 case, Coy v. Iowa, the Supreme Court placed limitations on efforts to protect child witnesses in court. During a sexual assault case, a one-way glass screen was set up so that the child victims would not be able to view the defendant (the defendant, however, could view the witnesses). 171 The Iowa statute that allowed the protective screen assumed that children would be traumatized by their courtroom experience. The Court ruled that unless there is a finding that the child witness needs special protection, the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution grants defendants face-to-face confrontation with their accusers. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor suggested that if courts found it necessary, it would be appropriate to allow children to testify via CCTV or videotape.

Justice O’Connor’s views became law in Maryland v. Craig . 172 In this case a daycare operator was convicted of sexually abusing a 6-year-old child; one-way CCTV testimony was used during the trial. The decision was overturned in the Maryland Court of Appeals on the grounds that the procedures used were insufficient to show that the child could only testify in this manner because a trial appearance would be too traumatic. On appeal, the Court ruled that the Maryland statute that allows CCTV testimony is sufficient because it requires a determination that the child will suffer distress if forced to testify. The Court noted that CCTV could serve as the equivalent of in-court testimony and would not interfere with the defendant’s right to confront witnesses.

White v. Illinois

The Supreme Court ruled that the state’s attorney is not required to produce young victims at trial or to demonstrate the reason why they were unavailable to serve as witnesses.

Maryland v. Craig

A state statute that allows closed-circuit (CCTV) testimony in child abuse cases is legal because it requires a determination that the child will suffer distress if forced to testify in court. CCTV can serve as the equivalent of in-court testimony and does not interfere with the defendant’s right to confront witnesses.

Disposition Outcomes of Abuse and Neglect Cases

There is considerable controversy over what forms of intervention are helpful in abuse and neglect cases. Today, social service agents avoid removing children from the home whenever possible and instead try to employ techniques to control abusive relationships. In serious cases, the state may remove children from their parents and place them in shelter care or foster homes. Placement of children in foster care is intended to be temporary, but it is not uncommon for children to remain in foster care for three years or more.

Ultimately, the court has the power to terminate the rights of parents over their children, but because the effects of destroying the family unit are far-reaching, the court does so only in the most severe cases. Judicial hesitancy is illustrated in a Virginia appellate case in which grandparents contested a father’s being awarded custody of his children. Even though he had a history of alcohol abuse, had already been found to be an unfit parent, and was awaiting appeal of his conviction for killing the children’s mother, the trial court claimed that he had turned his life around and granted him custody. 173

Despite such occurrences, efforts have been ongoing to improve the child protection system. Jurisdictions have expedited case processing, instituted procedures designed not to frighten child witnesses, coordinated investigations between social service and law enforcement agencies, and assigned an advocate or guardian ad litem to children in need of protection.

Preventing Child Abuse

The child protection system should be a last resort, and the key to solving the abuse problem is through early prevention. There have been a number of successful efforts to prevent child maltreatment. 174 The first step is to identify kids who are at risk for abuse in order to target interventions as early as possible. Researchers have identified five factors that are consistently correlated with maltreatment—child age, race, poverty, parental drug involvement, and single parenting. These factors interact in complex ways, but children who are characterized by all five are at higher risk than children who have only one. Once identified, a number of strategies have been tried:

· Communitywide interventions. Some programs focus on communitywide solutions to abuse. For example, the Triple P—Positive Parenting Program has proven quite successful. This program consists of several levels of intervention: a media-based campaign targeting the entire community, intensive treatments for progressively smaller groups of families that are at progressively greater risk for maltreatment, and individual family treatment.

· Home visiting programs. In these family-based interventions, trained professionals visit parents in their homes and administer a standard program that can range in intensity from one visit to multiple visits over months or even years. Some home visiting programs have been shown to have positive effects in areas of family life related to child abuse risk.

· Helping families with drug or alcohol abuse. Some programs require drug-addicted parents with reports of maltreatment to enroll in drug treatment within a few months and allow them up to 18 months to show progress in all problem areas, including addiction. Only if there is no measurable progress on every front are children removed and placed with relatives or an adoptive home.

· Sexual abuse education. Schools, religious groups, and youth organizations are now operating programs that teach children what to do in situations of potential abuse, how to stop potential offenders, and how to find help. Such programs also teach children not to blame themselves if they are victimized, a prevention strategy designed to head off emotional problems often triggered by abuse. There is reason to believe that these programs produce benefits such as increased disclosure and less self-blame following abuse.

Abuse, Neglect, and Delinquency

A significant amount of research suggests that being the target of abuse is associated with subsequent episodes of delinquency and violence (see Exhibit 8.1 ). 175 The more often a child is physically disciplined and the harsher the discipline, the more likely they will later engage in antisocial behaviors. 176 Kids who were neglected have been shown to be at greater risk to be arrested for later juvenile drug and alcohol offenses than non-neglected children. 177 The effects of abuse appear to be long term: exposure to abuse in early life provides a foundation for violent and antisocial behavior in late adolescence and adulthood. 178 Kids who are abused are likely to grow up to be abusers themselves. 179

exhibit 8.1: Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect

· 14 percent of all men in prison in the United States were abused as children.

· 36 percent of all women in prison were abused as children.

· Children who experience child abuse and neglect are 59 percent more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28 percent more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30 percent more likely to commit violent crime.

· As many as two-thirds of the people in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused or neglected as children.

· Abused children are 25 percent more likely to experience teen pregnancy.

· Abused teens are less likely to practice safe sex, putting them at greater risk for STDs.

· About 30 percent of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse.

· About 80 percent of 21-year-olds who were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder.

· More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.

· Approximately 80 percent of children who die from abuse are under the age of 4.

SOURCE: Reprinted by permission from Childhelp, National Child Abuse Statistics, http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics (accessed June 2013).

Clinical histories of known juvenile offenders support the abuse-delinquency link. These have confirmed that between 70 and 80 percent of juvenile offenders have abusive backgrounds, and many report serious injury, including bruises, lacerations, fractures, and being knocked unconscious by a parent or guardian. 180

Another approach is to use survey data. When Janet Currie and Erdal Tekin used highly sophisticated statistical tests to evaluate data from a large national survey of youth, they found that maltreatment doubles the probability of engaging in many types of delinquency and crime. They also found distinct patterns in the abuse-crime association. Lower-class children are more likely to be mistreated and suffer more damaging effects from their abuse than those in the upper and middle classes; abused boys are at greater risk to commit crime than are girls; children suffering sexual abuse have a greater chance of getting involved in delinquency and substance abuse than those who are physically abused; the more often and severe the abuse, the more likely a child will later engage in crime. 181 Ironically, cases that come to the attention of child protection agencies are also the ones most likely to violate the law; state intervention seems to do little to reduce the abuse-offending link.

Recently Cathy Widom reviewed results from four research investigations in the Midwest, Rochester (New York), Mecklenburg (North Carolina), and the Northwest and concluded that despite differences in geographic region, time period, youths’ ages, definition of child maltreatment, and assessment technique, there is convincing evidence that a link exists between child maltreatment and subsequent crime and delinquency. In addition, the findings indicate that children who experience violence in childhood are at an increased risk to become perpetrators of violence later in life. These children are also at an increased risk for mental health problems, suicide attempts, greater alcohol problems in women, lower rates of employment, and decreased levels of cognitive and intellectual functioning. 182

Is There an Abuse-Delinquency Link?

While the Widom review is quite convincing, many questions remain to be answered about the abuse-delinquency link. Even though an association has been found, it does not necessarily mean that most abused children become delinquent. Many do not, and many delinquent youths come from what appear to be model homes. And, although many studies have found an abuse-delinquency link, others find the association is either insignificant or inconsistent (e.g., applying to girls and not to boys). 183 Widom herself finds that the majority of both abused and non-abused kids do not engage in antisocial behavior. 184

Beyond the difficulty of showing a clear-cut link between abuse and delinquency, it is also difficult to assess the temporal order of the linkage: Does early abuse lead to later delinquency? Or conversely, are antisocial kids subject to overly harsh parental discipline and abuse? It is also possible that a third explanation exists: some external factor, such as environmental deprivation, causes both abuse and delinquency. That is, kids in lower-class areas are the ones most likely to be abused and kids living in lower-class areas are also more likely to become delinquent. 185 It is possible that environmental deprivation causes both abuse and delinquency.

Research also shows that the timing and extent of abuse may shape its impact. Kids who are maltreated solely during early childhood may be less likely to engage in chronic delinquency than those whose abuse is lasting and persists into later adolescence. 186 Persistent maltreatment also gives the victims little opportunity to cope or deal with their ongoing victimization. 187 In sum, while the evidence shows a clear link between abuse and subsequent delinquent behavior, the true nature of the association has yet to be determined.

The Family and Delinquency Control Policy

Since the family is believed to play such an important role in the production of youth crime, it follows that improving family functioning can help prevent delinquency. Counselors commonly work with the families of antisocial youths as part of a court-ordered treatment strategy. Family counseling and therapy are almost mandatory when the child’s acting-out behavior is suspected to be the result of family-related problems such as child abuse or neglect. 188 Some jurisdictions have integrated family counseling services into the juvenile court. 189

There are a number of approaches to delinquency prevention based on improving family relations or if that is not possible offering an alternative. For example, mentoring programs involve nonprofessional volunteers who spend time with young people who have been targeted as having the potential for dropping out of school, school failure, and other social problems. They mentor in a supportive, nonjudgmental manner while also acting as role models. One of the most successful is the Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP), designed around the provision of three “quantum opportunities”:

· Educational activities (peer tutoring, computer-based instruction, homework assistance)

· Service activities (volunteering with community projects)

· Development activities (curricula focused on life and family skills, and college and career planning)

EVIDENCE-BASED JUVENILE JUSTICE—Intervention: Homebuilders

Homebuilders is an in-home, intensive family preservation service (IFPS) and reunification program for families with children (newborn to 17 years old) returning from or at risk of placement into foster care, group or residential treatment, psychiatric hospitals, or juvenile justice facilities. The Homebuilders model is designed to improve parental skills, parental capabilities, family interactions, children’s behavior, and family safety. The goals are to prevent the unnecessary out-of-home placement of children through an intensive, onsite intervention and to teach families new problem-solving skills to improve family functioning.

Homebuilders therapists work with youths and families involved in the child welfare, juvenile justice, and mental health system. For high-risk families involved with the child protective services system, the goal of the program is to remove the risk of harm to the child instead of removing the child. Therapists work with families to teach them new behaviors and help them make better choices for their children, while ensuring child safety. In addition, Homebuilders works with youths and their families to address issues that lead to delinquency, while allowing youths to remain in the community. Program staff ensure that kids attend classes regularly, adhere to curfews, comply with the courts, and learn anger management and conflict-resolution skills to avoid getting into more trouble. Youths are helped to avoid the trauma and stigma of psychiatric hospitalization or residential treatment for mental health–related issues by providing crisis intervention and skill building, involving the families in the youths’ treatment, and broadening the continuum of care.

The primary intervention components of the Homebuilders model are engaging and motivating family members; conducting holistic, behavioral assessments of strengths and problems; developing outcome-based goals; using evidence-based cognitive-behavioral interventions; teaching skills to facilitate behavior change; and developing and enhancing ongoing supports and resources.

The core program strategies are:

· Intervention at crisis point. Homebuilders therapists work with families when they are in crisis. Families are seen within 24 hours of referral to the program.

· Accessibility. Services are provided in the family’s home and community (e.g., school) at times convenient to families, including evenings, weekends, and holidays. Therapists are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for crisis intervention. This accessibility allows close monitoring of potentially dangerous situations.

· Flexibility. Intervention strategies and methods are tailored to meet the needs, values, and lifestyles of each family. Services are provided when and where the families wish. Therapists also provide a wide range of services, such as helping families meet the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter; using public transportation; budgeting; and, when necessary, dealing with the social services system.

· Time limited and low caseload. Families receive 4 to 6 weeks of intensive intervention, with up to two “booster sessions.” Therapists typically serve two families at a time and provide 80 to 100 hours of service, with an average of 45 hours of face-to-face contact with the family.

· Strengths-based. Therapists help clients identify and prioritize goals, strengths, and values and help them use and enhance strengths and resources to achieve their goals.

· Ecological/holistic assessment and individualized treatment planning. Assessments of family strengths, problems, and barriers to service/treatment and outcome-based goals and treatment plans are completed collaboratively with each family.

· Research-based treatment practices. Therapists use evidence-based treatment practices, including motivational interviewing, behavioral parent training, cognitive-behavior therapy strategies, and relapse prevention. Therapists teach family members a variety of skills, including child behavior management, effective discipline, positive behavioral support, communication skills, problem-solving skills, resisting peer pressure, mood management skills, safety planning, and establishing daily routines.

· Support and resource building. Therapists help families assess their formal and informal support systems and develop and enhance ongoing supports and resources for maintaining and facilitating changes.

Systematic research shows the program can be a cost-effective intervention method. A cost-benefit analysis found that, for each dollar invested in the Homebuilders program, the total benefit-to-cost ratio per participant was $2.54. The total benefits minus the costs was $4,775, a positive result indicating that money is saved by investing in the program.

CRITICAL THINKING

Is it possible for a program like Homebuilders to work in the nation’s most disorganized areas? Can an intervention program such as this overcome the effects of neighborhood dysfunction? Is this a Band-Aid approach to social problems?

SOURCE: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Homebuilders, http://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/homebuilders-mpgprogramdetail-341.aspx (accessed June 2013).

Incentives in the form of cash and college scholarships have been offered to students for work carried out in these three areas. These incentives serve to provide short-run motivation for school completion and future academic and social achievement. In addition, staff receive cash incentives and bonuses for keeping youths involved in the program. 190 Another effective program, Homebuilders, is discussed in the Evidence-Based Juvenile Justice feature.

Another approach to involving the family in delinquency prevention is to attack the problem before it occurs. Early childhood prevention programs that target at-risk youths can relieve some of the symptoms associated with delinquency. 191 Frequent home visits by trained nurses and social service personnel help reduce child abuse and other injuries to infants. 192 Evidence suggests that early intervention may be the most effective method and that the later the intervention, the more difficult the change process. 193

Because the family plays such a crucial role in delinquency prevention and control policies, it is one of the focus areas in Chapter 12 ’s discussion of delinquency prevention strategies. Since it is suspected that child abuse leads to a cycle of violence, there are also programs designed to help abusive parents refrain from repeating their violent episodes.

SUMMARY

· 1 Be familiar with the link between family relationships and juvenile delinquency

· There is little question that family dysfunction can lead to long-term social problems.

· Interactions between parents and children provide opportunities for children to acquire or inhibit antisocial behavior patterns.

· People who perceived a lack of parental warmth and support were later much more likely to get involved in antisocial behaviors.

· Good parenting lowers the risk of delinquency for children living in high-crime areas.

· 2 Chart the changes American families are now undergoing

· The nuclear family is showing signs of breakdown.

· The so-called traditional family—with a male breadwinner and a female who cares for the home—is a thing of the past.

· Children today live in a profusion of family living arrangements.

· Though there has been a sharp decline in teen pregnancies over the past decade, most kids born to unwed women have teen moms.

· 3 Understand the complex association between family breakup and delinquent behavior

· About half of all marriages end in divorce.

· Research indicates that parents whose marriage is secure produce children who are secure and independent.

· Children who have experienced family breakup are more likely to demonstrate behavior problems and hyperactivity than children in intact families.

· There is a growing sentiment that family breakup is traumatic and most likely has a direct influence on factors related to adolescent misbehavior.

· Divorce may influence children’s misbehavior through its effect on parental misbehavior.

· While family breakup is linked to delinquency, most kids whose parents are divorced or separated live happy and productive lives.

· 4 Understand why families in conflict produce more delinquents than those that function harmoniously

· The link between parental conflict and delinquency is well established in the research literature.

· Children who grow up in dysfunctional homes often exhibit delinquent behaviors, having learned at a young age that aggression pays off.

· Kids who are conflict prone may actually help to destabilize households.

· 5 Compare and contrast the effects of good and bad parenting on delinquency

· Children raised by parents who lack proper parenting skills are more at risk than those whose parents are supportive and effectively control their children.

· Parents of beyond-control youngsters have been found to be inconsistent rule-setters.

· Children who feel inhibited with their parents and refuse to discuss important issues with them are more likely to engage in deviant activities.

· Delinquency will be reduced if both or at least one parent can provide parental efficacy, or the type of structure that integrates children into families while giving them the ability to assert their individuality and regulate their own behavior.

· 6 Discuss whether having deviant parents affects a child’s behavioral choices

· A number of studies have found that parental deviance has a powerful influence on delinquent behavior.

· A significant number of delinquent youths have criminal fathers.

· School yard bullying may be both inter- and intragenerational.

· The link between parental deviance and child misbehavior may be genetic.

· Children of drug-abusing parents are more likely to get involved in drug abuse and delinquency than the children of nonabusers.

· The link between parental deviance and child delinquency may be shaped by parenting ability, by learning deviant values, or it may even be related to labeling and stigma.

· 7 Know about sibling influence on delinquency

· Some evidence shows that siblings may influence behavior.

· Siblings who live in the same environment are influenced by similar social and economic factors; it is not surprising that their behavior is similar.

· If deviance is genetically determined, the traits that cause one sibling to engage in delinquency are shared by his or her brother or sister.

· Deviant siblings grow closer because of shared interests. It is possible that the relationship is due to personal interactions: Younger siblings imitate older siblings.

· 8 Discuss the nature and extent of child abuse

· Parental abuse and neglect are not modern phenomena. Maltreatment of children has occurred throughout history.

· Child abuse includes neglect as well as physical and sexual abuse.

· Physical abuse includes throwing, shooting, stabbing, burning, drowning, suffocating, and biting.

· Physical neglect results from parents’ failure to provide adequate food, shelter, or medical care for their children.

· Emotional abuse is manifested by constant criticism and rejection of the child.

· Emotional neglect includes inadequate nurturing and inattention to a child’s emotional development.

· Abandonment refers to the situation in which parents leave their children with the intention of severing the parent-child relationship.

· Sexual abuse refers to the exploitation of children through rape, incest, and molestation by parents, other family members, friends, or legal guardians.

· Approximately 3 million allegations of child abuse and neglect involving 6 million children are made to child protective services agencies each year.

· 9 List the assumed causes of child abuse

· Abusive families suffer from severe stress.

· Substance abuse has been linked to child abuse.

· Parents who themselves suffered abuse tend to abuse their own children.

· The presence of an unrelated adult in the home increases the risk of abuse.

· Isolated and alienated families tend to become abusive.

· The behavior of abusive parents can often be traced to negative experiences in their own childhood—physical abuse, emotional neglect, and incest.

· 10 Be familiar with the child protection system and the stages in the child protection process

· If the care a child receives falls below reasonable standards, the state may take action to remove a child from the home and place her or him in a less threatening environment.

· Child protection agencies have been dealing with abuse and neglect since the late nineteenth century.

· The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act has been the impetus for the states to improve the legal frameworks of their child protection systems.

· All states have statutes requiring that persons suspected of abuse and neglect be reported.

· Once reported to a child protection agency, the case is screened by an intake worker and then turned over to an investigative caseworker.

· In making their decisions, courts are guided by three interests: the role of the parents, protection for the child, and the responsibility of the state.

KEY TERMS

nuclear family, p. 278

broken home, p. 283

blended families, p. 283

intrafamily violence, p. 286

parental efficacy, p. 287

resource dilution, p. 288

battered child syndrome, p. 292

child abuse, p. 292

neglect, p. 292

abandonment, p. 292

familicide, p. 297

Troxel v. Granville, p. 298

Santosky v. Kramer, p. 298

advisement hearing, p. 299

pretrial conference, p. 300

disposition hearing, p. 301

balancing-of-the-interests approach, p. 302

review hearings, p. 302

foster care, p. 302

hearsay, p. 303

White v. Illinois, p. 304

Maryland v. Craig, p. 304

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

What are the meanings of the terms child abuse and child neglect?

Discuss the association between child abuse and delinquency. Give two different explanations for the positive relationship between abuse and antisocial behavior.

What causes parents to abuse their children?

What is meant by the child protection system? Do courts act in the best interest of the child when they allow an abused child to remain with the family?

Should children be allowed to testify in court via CCTV? Does this approach prevent defendants in child abuse cases from confronting their accusers?

Is corporal punishment ever permissible as a disciplinary method?

VIEWPOINT

You are an investigator with the county bureau of social services. A case has been referred to you by a middle school’s head guidance counselor. It seems that a young girl, Emily, has been showing up to school in a dazed and listless condition. She has had a hard time concentrating in class and seems withdrawn and uncommunicative. The 13-year-old has missed more than her normal share of school days and has often been late to class. Last week, she seemed so lethargic that her homeroom teacher sent her to the school nurse. A physical examination revealed that she was malnourished and in poor physical health. She also had evidence of bruising that could only come from a severe beating. Emily told the nurse that she had been punished by her parents for doing poorly at school and failing to do her chores at home.

When her parents were called to school to meet with the principal and guidance counselor, they claimed to be members of a religious order that believes children should be punished severely for their misdeeds. Emily had been placed on a restricted diet as well as beaten with a belt to correct her misbehavior. When the guidance counselor asked them if they would be willing to go into family therapy, they were furious and told her to “mind her own business.” It’s a sad day, they said, when “God-fearing American citizens cannot bring up their children according to their religious beliefs.” The girl is in no immediate danger because her punishment has not been life threatening.

The case is then referred to your office. When you go to see the parents at home, they refuse to make any change in their behavior, claiming that they are in the right and you represent all that is wrong with society. The “lax” discipline you suggest leads to drugs, sex, and other teenage problems.

· Would you get a court order removing Emily from her house, placing her in foster care, and requiring the parents to go into counseling?

· Would you report the case to the district attorney’s office so it could take criminal action against her parents under the state’s child protection act?

· Would you take no further action, reasoning that Emily’s parents have the right to discipline their child as they see fit?

· Would you talk with Emily and see what she wants to happen?

DOING RESEARCH ON THE WEB

To help you answer these questions and to find more information on child abuse, visit the website of the National Library of Medicine ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ ). Their database provides both links and information on child abuse. Another useful site is Prevent Child Abuse America (Prevent Child Abuse America), a group established in 1972 and dedicated to preventing all forms of child abuse. You can also visit the Criminal Justice CourseMate at cengagebrain.com , then access the “Web Links” for this chapter.

NOTES

1. Tracy Dingman, “Probable Cause Statement Lays Out Motive and Details in Murder of Griego Family,” KOB News, New Mexico, January 21, 2013, http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s2903832.shtml (accessed June 2013).

2. Abigail Fagan, M. Lee Van Horn, Susan Antaramian, and J. David Hawkins, “How Do Families Matter? Age and Gender Differences in Family Influences on Delinquency and Drug Use,” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 9:50–170 (2011).

3. Callie Harbin Burt, Ronald Simons, and Leslie Simons, “A Longitudinal Test of the Effects of Parenting and the Stability of Self-Control: Negative Evidence for the General Theory of Crime,” Criminology 44:353–396 (2006).

4. Dana Haynie and D. Wayne Osgood, “Reconsidering Peers and Delinquency: How Do Peers Matter?” Social Forces 84:1110–1130 (2005).

5. Emma Palmer and Kirsty Gough, “Childhood Experiences of Parenting and Causal Attributions for Criminal Behavior among Young Offenders and Non-Offenders,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 37:790–806 (2007).

6. Karen Matta Oshima, Jin Huang, Melissa Jonson-Reid, and Brett Drake, “Children with Disabilities in Poor Households: Association with Juvenile and Adult Offending,” Social Work Research 34:102–113 (2010).

7. Joan McCord, “Family Relationships, Juvenile Delinquency, and Adult Criminality,” Criminology 29:397–417 (1991); Scott Henggeler, ed., Delinquency and Adolescent Psychopathology: A Family Ecological Systems Approach (Littleton, MA: Wright–PSG, 1982).

8. Bisakha Sen, “The Relationship between Frequency of Family Dinner and Adolescent Problem Behaviors after Adjusting for Other Family Characteristics,” Journal of Adolescence 33:187–196 (2010).

9. Sarah Meadows, “Evidence of Parallel Pathways: Gender Similarity in the Impact of Social Support on Adolescent Depression and Delinquency,” Social Forces 85:1143–1167 (2007).

10. Ruth Inglis, Sins of the Fathers: A Study of the Physical and Emotional Abuse of Children (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978), p. 131.

11. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Vital Statistics Report, “Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths,” http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm (accessed June 2013).

12. See Joseph J. Costa and Gordon K. Nelson, Child Abuse and Neglect: Legislation, Reporting, and Prevention (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1978), p. xiii.

13. Tamar Lewin, “Men Assuming Bigger Role at Home, New Survey Shows,” New York Times, April 15, 1998, p. A18.

14. Terence P. Thornberry, Carolyn A. Smith, Craig Rivera, David Huizinga, and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, Family Disruption and Delinquency, Juvenile Justice Bulletin (Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, September 1999), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/178285.pdf (accessed June 2013).

15. US Census Bureau press release, “More Young Adults Are Living in Their Parents’ Home, Census Bureau Reports,” November 3, 2011, http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/families_households/cb11-183.html (accessed June 2013).

16. Sara McLanahan and Audrey N. Beck, “Parental Relationships in Fragile Families,” The Future of Children 20 (2010), http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=73&articleid=529 (accessed June 2013).

17. Ryan Spohn and Don Kurtz, “Family Structure as a Social Context for Family Conflict: Unjust Strain and Serious Delinquency,” Criminal Justice Review 36:332–356 (2011).

18. William S. Comanor and Llad Phillips, “The Impact of Income and Family Structure on Delinquency,” Journal of Applied Economics 5:209–232 (2002).

19. America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2012, http://childstats.gov/americaschildren/famsoc.asp (accessed June 2013).

20. Mary Shaw, Debbie Lawlor, and Jake Najman, “Teenage Children of Teenage Mothers: Psychological, Behavioural and Health Outcomes from an Australian Prospective Longitudinal Study,” Social Science and Medicine 62:2526–2539 (2006).

21. Nancy Cambria, “Missouri Prosecutors Face Limits on Punishing Illegal Day Cares,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 10, 2011, http://www.stltoday.com/news/special-reports/daycares/missouri-prosecutors-face-limits-on-punishing-illegal-day-cares/article_132aead4-f05d-11e0-a77c-0019bb30f31a.html (accessed June 2012).

22. Valerie Polakow, Who Cares for Our Children? The Child Care Crisis in the Other America (New York: Teachers College Press, 2007).

23. US Census Bureau, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,” Report P60, n. 238, Table B-2, pp. 68–73.

24. US Census Bureau, “Projected Population of the United States, by Age and Sex: 2000 to 2050,” http://www.census.gov/population/projections/files/usinterimproj/natprojtab02a.pdf (accessed June 2013).

25. Christopher Sullivan, “Early Adolescent Delinquency: Assessing the Role of Childhood Problems, Family Environment, and Peer Pressure,” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 4:291–313 (2006).

26. Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, “Family Factors as Correlates and Predictors of Juvenile Conduct Problems and Delinquency,” in Michael Tonry and Norval Morris, eds., Crime and Justice, vol. 7 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 39–41.

27. Carla Davis, “At-Risk Girls and Delinquency,” Crime and Delinquency 53:408–435 (2007).

28. Christopher Kierkus, Brian Johnson, and John Hewitt, “Cohabiting, Family and Community Stressors, Selection, and Juvenile Delinquency,” Criminal Justice Review 35:393–411 (2010).

29. Andre Sourander, Henrik Elonheimo, Solja Niemelä, Art-Matti Nuutila, Hans Helenius, Lauri Sillanmäki, Jorma Piha, Tuulk Tamminen, Kirsti Kumpulkinen, Irma Moilanen, and Frederik Almovist, “Childhood Predictors of Male Criminality: A Prospective Population-Based Follow-up Study from Age 8 to Late Adolescence,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 45:578–586 (2006).

30. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “Dan Quayle Was Right,” Atlantic Monthly 271:47–84 (1993).

31. C. Patrick Brady, James Bray, and Linda Zeeb, “Behavior Problems of Clinic Children: Relation to Parental Marital Status, Age, and Sex of Child,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 56:399–412 (1986).

32. Scott Henggeler, Delinquency in Adolescence (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989), p. 48.

33. Ronald Simons, Kuei-Hsiu Lin, Leslie Gordon, Rand Conger, and Frederick Lorenz, “Explaining the Higher Incidence of Adjustment Problems among Children of Divorce Compared with Those in Two-Parent Families,” Journal of Marriage and the Family61:131–148 (1999).

34. En-Ling Pan and Michael Farrell, “Ethnic Differences in the Effects of Intergenerational Relations on Adolescent Problem Behavior in U.S. Single-Mother Families,” Journal of Family Issues 27:1137–1158 (2006).

35. Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950); Ashley Weeks, “Predicting Juvenile Delinquency,” American Sociological Review 8:40–46 (1943).

36. Jackson Toby, “The Differential Impact of Family Disorganization,” American Sociological Review 22:505–512 (1957); Ruth Morris, “Female Delinquency and Relation Problems,” Social Forces 43:82–89 (1964); Roland Chilton and Gerald Markle, “Family Disruption, Delinquent Conduct, and the Effects of Sub-classification,” American Sociological Review 37: 93–99 (1972).

37. For a review of these early studies, see Thomas Monahan, “Family Status and the Delinquent Child: A Reappraisal and Some New Findings,” Social Forces 35:250–258 (1957).

38. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, Report on the Causes of Crime: Social Factors in Juvenile Delinquency, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1931), p. 392.

39. John Laub and Robert Sampson, “Unraveling Families and Delinquency: A Reanalysis of the Gluecks’ Data,” Criminology 26:355–380 (1988); Lawrence Rosen, “The Broken Home and Male Delinquency,” in M. Wolfgang, L. Savitz, and N. Johnston, eds., The Sociology of Crime and Delinquency (New York: Wiley, 1970), pp. 489–495.

40. Christina DeJong and Kenneth Jackson, “Putting Race into Context: Race, Juvenile Justice Processing, and Urbanization,” Justice Quarterly 15:487–504 (1998).

41. Robert Johnson, John Hoffman, and Dean Gerstein, The Relationship between Family Structure and Adolescent Substance Abuse(Washington, DC: Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1996).

42. Thornberry, Smith, Rivera, Huizinga, and Stouthamer-Loeber, Family Disruption and Delinquency, Juvenile Justice Bulletin.

43. Cesar Rebellon, “Reconsidering the Broken Homes/Delinquency Relationship and Exploring Its Mediating Mechanism(s),” Criminology 40:103–135 (2002).

44. Lisa Stolzenberg and Stewart D’Alessio, “The Effect of Divorce on Domestic Crime,” Crime and Delinquency 53:281–302 (2007).

45. Sara Jaffee, Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, and Alan Taylor, “Life with (or without) Father: The Benefits of Living with Two Biological Parents Depend on the Father’s Antisocial Behavior,” Child Development 74: 109–117 (2003).

46. Ryan Schroeder, Aurea Osgood, and Michael Oghia, “Family Transitions and Juvenile Delinquency,” Sociological Inquiry 80:579–604 (2010).

47. Sara McLanahan, “Father Absence and the Welfare of Children,” working paper (Chicago: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Research Foundation, 1998).

48. Judith S. Wallerstein, Julia M. Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (New York: Hyperion, 2000).

49. E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002).

50. F. Ivan Nye, “Child Adjustment in Broken and Unhappy Unbroken Homes,” Marriage and Family 19:356–361 (1957); Nye, Family Relationships and Delinquent Behavior (New York: Wiley, 1958).

51. Diana Formoso, Nancy Gonzales, and Leona Aiken, “Family Conflict and Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior: Protective Factors,” American Journal of Community Psychology 28:175–199 (2000).

52. Peter Jaffe, David Wolfe, Susan Wilson, and Lydia Zak, “Similarities in Behavior and Social Maladjustment among Child Victims and Witnesses to Family Violence,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 56:142–146 (1986).

53. Lynette Renner, “Single Types of Family Violence Victimization and Externalizing Behaviors among Children and Adolescents,” Journal of Family Violence 27:177–186 (2012).

54. Paul Amato and Bruce Keith, “Parental Divorce and the Well-Being of Children: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 110:26–46 (1991).

55. Christopher Kierkus and Douglas Baer, “A Social Control Explanation of the Relationship between Family Structure and Delinquent Behaviour,” Canadian Journal of Criminology 44:425–458 (2002).

56. John Paul Wright and Francis Cullen, “Parental Efficacy and Delinquent Behavior: Do Control and Support Matter?” Criminology39:677–706 (2001).

57. Kathleen Roche, Margaret Ensminger, and Andrew Cherlin, “Variations in Parenting and Adolescent Outcomes among African American and Latino Families Living in Low-Income, Urban Areas,” Journal of Family Issues 28:882–909 (2007).

58. Rick Trinkner, Ellen S. Cohn, Cesar J. Rebellon, and Karen Van Gundy, “Don’t Trust Anyone over 30: Parental Legitimacy as a Mediator between Parenting Style and Changes in Delinquent Behavior over Time,” Journal of Adolescence 35:119–132 (2012).

59. Ibid.

60. Jennifer Wainright and Charlotte Patterson, “Delinquency, Victimization, and Substance Use among Adolescents with Female Same-Sex Parents,” Journal of Family Psychology 20:526–530 (2006).

61. Roslyn Caldwell, Jenna Silverman, Noelle Lefforge, and Clayton Silver, “Adjudicated Mexican-American Adolescents: The Effects of Familial Emotional Support on Self-Esteem, Emotional Well-Being, and Delinquency,” American Journal of Family Therapy 32:55–69 (2004); Robert Vermeiren, Jef Bogaerts, Vladislav Ruchkin, Dirk Deboutte, and Mary Schwab-Stone,” Subtypes of Self-Esteem and Self-Concept in Adolescent Violent and Property Offenders,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45:405–411 (2004).

62. Leslie Gordon Simons and Rand Conger, “Linking Mother-Father Differences in Parenting to a Typology of Family Parenting Styles and Adolescent Outcomes,” Journal of Family Issues 28:212–241 (2007).

63. Carter Hay, “Parenting, Self-Control, and Delinquency: A Test of Self-Control Theory,” Criminology 39:707–736 (2001).

64. Sonia Cota-Robles and Wendy Gamble, “Parent-Adolescent Processes and Reduced Risk for Delinquency: The Effect of Gender for Mexican American Adolescents,” Youth and Society 37:375–392 (2006).

65. Wesley Church, Sara Tomek, Kathleen Bolland, Lisa Hooper, Jeremiah Jaggers, and John Bolland, “A Longitudinal Examination of Predictors of Delinquency: An Analysis of Data from the Mobile Youth Survey,” Children and Youth Services Review 34:2400–2408 (2012).

66. Wainright and Patterson, “Delinquency, Victimization, and Substance Use among Adolescents with Female Same-Sex Parents.”

67. Stephanie Hicks-Pass, “Corporal Punishment in America Today: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child? A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Best Practices in Mental Health 5:71–88 (2009).

68. Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber, “Development of Juvenile Aggression and Violence,” p. 251.

69. Nathaniel Pallone and James Hennessy, “Brain Dysfunction and Criminal Violence,” Society 35:21–27 (1998).

70. Eric Slade and Lawrence Wissow, “Spanking in Early Childhood and Later Behavior Problems: A Prospective Study of Infants and Young Toddlers,” Pediatrics 113:1321–1330 (2004).

71. Murray Straus, “Discipline and Deviance: Physical Punishment of Children and Violence and Other Crime in Adulthood,” Social Problems 38:101–123 (1991).

72. Murray A. Straus, “Spanking and the Making of a Violent Society: The Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Corporal Punishment,” Pediatrics 98:837–843 (1996).

73. Ibid.

74. Nye, Family Relationships and Delinquent Behavior.

75. Laurence Steinberg, Ilana Blatt-Eisengart, and Elizabeth Cauffman, “Patterns of Competence and Adjustment among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful Homes: A Replication in a Sample of Serious Juvenile Offenders,” Journal of Research on Adolescence 26:47–58 (2006).

76. Lisa Broidy, “Direct Supervision and Delinquency: Assessing the Adequacy of Structural Proxies,” Journal of Criminal Justice23:541–554 (1995).

77. James Unnever, Francis Cullen, and Robert Agnew, “Why Is ‘Bad’ Parenting Criminogenic? Implications from Rival Theories,” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 4:3–33 (2006).

78. Sung Joon Jang and Carolyn A. Smith, “A Test of Reciprocal Causal Relationships among Parental Supervision, Affective Ties, and Delinquency,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 34:307–336 (1997); Linda Waite and Lee Lillard, “Children and Marital Disruption,” American Journal of Sociology 96:930–953 (1991).

79. Jennifer Beyers, John Bates, Gregory Pettit, and Kenneth Dodge, “Neighborhood Structure, Parenting Processes, and the Development of Youths’ Externalizing Behaviors,” American Journal of Community Psychology 31:35–53 (2003).

80. Joongyeup Lee, Hyunseok Jang, and Leana A. Bouffard, “Maternal Employment and Juvenile Delinquency: A Longitudinal Study of Korean Adolescents,” Crime and Delinquency, first published online December 7, 2011.

81. Thomas Vander Ven and Francis Cullen, “The Impact of Maternal Employment on Serious Youth Crime: Does the Quality of Working Conditions Matter?” Crime and Delinquency 50:272–292 (2004); Thomas Vander Ven, Francis Cullen, Mark Carrozza, and John Paul Wright, “Home Alone: The Impact of Maternal Employment on Delinquency,” Social Problems 48:236–257 (2001).

82. Stacy De Coster, “Mothers’ Work and Family Roles, Gender Ideologies, Distress, and Parenting,” Sociological Quarterly 53:585–609 (2012).

83. Douglas Downey, “Number of Siblings and Intellectual Development,” American Psychologist 56:497–504 (2001).

84. Vander Ven, Cullen, Carrozza, and Wright, “Home Alone.”

85. For an early review, see Barbara Wooton, Social Science and Social Pathology (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959).

86. Stacy Tzoumakis, Patrick Lussier, and Raymond Corrado, “Female Juvenile Delinquency, Motherhood, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Aggression and Antisocial Behavior,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 30:211–237 (2012).

87. Marieke van de Rakt, Joseph Murray, and Paul Nieuwbeerta, “The Long-Term Effects of Paternal Imprisonment on Criminal Trajectories of Children,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 49:81–108 (2012).

88. Daniel Shaw, “Advancing Our Understanding of Intergenerational Continuity in Antisocial Behavior,” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 31:193–199 (2003).

89. Donald J. West and David P. Farrington, eds., “Who Becomes Delinquent?” in The Delinquent Way of Life (London: Heinemann, 1977); Donald J. West, Delinquency: Its Roots, Careers, and Prospects (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).

90. David Farrington, “Understanding and Preventing Bullying,” in Michael Tonry, ed., Crime and Justice, vol. 17 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 381–457.

91. Carolyn Smith and David Farrington, “Continuities in Antisocial Behavior and Parenting Across Three Generations,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45:230–247 (2004).

92. Joseph Murray, Rolf Loeber, and Dustin Pardini, “Parental Involvement in the Criminal Justice System and the Development of Youth Theft, Marijuana Use, Depression, and Poor Academic Performance,” Criminology 50:255–312 (2012).

93. Erin Kathleen Midgley and Celia Lo, “The Role of a Parent’s Incarceration in the Emotional Health and Problem Behaviors of At-Risk Adolescents,” Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse 22:85–103 (2013); Michael Roettger and Raymond Swisher, “Associations of Fathers’ History of Incarceration with Sons’ Delinquency and Arrest among Black, White, and Hispanic Males in the United States,” Criminology 49:1109–1148 (2011).

94. Joseph Murray and David Farrington, “Parental Imprisonment: Effects on Boys’ Antisocial Behaviour and Delinquency Through the Life-Course,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46:1269–1278 (2005).

95. Lauren Aaron and Danielle Dallaire, “Parental Incarceration and Multiple Risk Experiences: Effects on Family Dynamics and Children’s Delinquency,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 39:1471–1484 (2010).

96. Peggy C. Giordano, Legacies of Crime: A Follow-Up of the Children of Highly Delinquent Girls and Boys (London: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

97. Abigail Fagan and Jake Najman, “Sibling Influences on Adolescent Delinquent Behaviour: An Australian Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Adolescence 26:546–558 (2003).

98. David Rowe and Bill Gulley, “Sibling Effects on Substance Use and Delinquency,” Criminology 30:217–232 (1992); see also David Rowe, Joseph Rogers, and Sylvia Meseck-Bushey, “Sibling Delinquency and the Family Environment: Shared and Unshared Influences,” Child Development 63:59–67 (1992).

99. Deeanna Button and Roberta Gealt, “High Risk Behaviors among Victims of Sibling Violence,” Journal of Family Violence 25:131–140 (2010).

100. Matt Delisi, Kevin Beaver, Michael Vaughn, and John Paul Wright, “All in the Family: Gene x Environment Interaction between DRD2 and Criminal Father Is Associated with Five Antisocial Phenotypes,” Criminal Justice and Behavior 36:1177–1187 (2009); John Paul Wright and Kevin Beaver, “Do Parents Matter in Creating Self-Control in Their Children? A Genetically Informed Test of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s Theory of Low Self-Control,” Criminology 43:1169–1202 (2005).

101. Leonore Simon, “Does Criminal Offender Treatment Work?” Applied and Preventive Psychology Summer:1–22 (1998).

102. Laura Baker, Kristen Jacobson, Adrian Raine, Dora Isabel Lozano, and Serena Bezdjian, “Genetic and Environmental Bases of Childhood Antisocial Behavior: A Multi-Informant Twin Study,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 116:219–235 (2007).

103. Dana DeHart and Sandra Altshuler, “Violence Exposure among Children of Incarcerated Mothers,” Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 26:467–479 (2009).

104. Nancy Day, Lidush Goldschmidt, and Carrie Thomas, “Prenatal Marijuana Exposure Contributes to the Prediction of Marijuana Use at Age 14,” Addiction 101:1313–1322 (2006).

105. Philip Harden and Robert Pihl, “Cognitive Function, Cardiovascular Reactivity, and Behavior in Boys at High Risk for Alcoholism,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 104:94–103 (1995).

106. Laub and Sampson, “Unraveling Families and Delinquency,” p. 370.

107. Anne Dannerbeck, “Differences in Parenting Attributes, Experiences, and Behaviors of Delinquent Youth with and without a Parental History of Incarceration,” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 3:199–213 (2005).

108. David P. Farrington, Gwen Gundry, and Donald J. West, “The Familial Transmission of Criminality,” in Alan Lincoln and Murray Straus, eds., Crime and the Family (Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1985), pp. 193–206.

109. Kareem Fahim, “Mother Gets 43 Years in Death of Child, 7,” New York Times, November 12, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/nyregion/13nixzmary.html (accessed June 2013).

110. Associated Press, “Gov Signs Nixzmary’s Law,” New York Post, October 10, 2009, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/item_6ilH907iItYusqmo4PogkO (accessed June 2013).

111. Richard Gelles and Claire Pedrick Cornell, Intimate Violence in Families, 2nd ed. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990), p. 33.

112. Lois Hochhauser, “Child Abuse and the Law: A Mandate for Change,” Harvard Law Journal 18:200 (1973); see also Douglas J. Besharov, “The Legal Aspects of Reporting Known and Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect,” Villanova Law Review 23:458 (1978).

113. C. Henry Kempe, F. N. Silverman, B. F. Steele, W. Droegemueller, and H. K. Silver, “The Battered-Child Syndrome,” Journal of the American Medical Association 181:17–24 (1962).

114. Brian G. Fraser, “A Glance at the Past, a Gaze at the Present, a Glimpse at the Future: A Critical Analysis of the Development of Child Abuse Reporting Statutes,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 54:643 (1977–1978).

115. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/childmaltreatment/ (accessed June 2013).

116. See, especially, Inglis, Sins of the Fathers, ch. 8.

117. William Downs and Brenda Miller, “Relationships between Experiences of Parental Violence During Childhood and Women’s Self-Esteem,” Violence and Victims 13:63–78 (1998).

118. Ruth S. Kempe and C. Henry Kempe, Child Abuse (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 6–7.

119. Fred Rogosch and Dante Cicchetti, “Child Maltreatment and Emergent Personality Organization: Perspectives from the Five-Factor Model,” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 32:123–145 (2004).

120. Wendy Fisk, “Childhood Trauma and Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America5:431–447 (1996).

121. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/childmaltreatment/ (accessed June 2013).

122. National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, http://www.dontshake.com (accessed June 2013).

123. Mary Haskett and Janet Kistner, “Social Interactions and Peer Perceptions of Young Physically Abused Children,” Child Development 62:679–690 (1991).

124. Kara Marie Brawn and Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, “Female Juvenile Prostitutes: Exploring the Relationship to Substance Use,” Children and Youth Services Review 30:1395–1402 (2008).

125. Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Suzanne Steinmentz, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1980); Richard Gelles and Murray Straus, “Violence in the American Family,” Journal of Social Issues 35:15–39 (1979).

126. Gelles and Straus, “Violence in the American Family,” p. 24.

127. Richard Gelles and Murray Straus, The Causes and Consequences of Abuse in the American Family (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988).

128. Murray A. Straus and Anita K. Mathur, “Social Change and Trends in Approval of Corporal Punishment by Parents from 1968 to 1994,” in D. Frehsee, W. Horn, and K. Bussman, eds., Violence Against Children (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1996), pp. 91–105.

129. US Department of Health and Human Services, “Child Maltreatment, 2011,” http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm11.pdf#page=9 (accessed June 2013).

130. Joe Drape, “Sandusky Guilty of Sexual Abuse of 10 Young Boys,” New York Times, June 22, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/sports/ncaafootball/jerry-sandusky-convicted-of-sexually-abusing-boys.html (accessed June 2013).

131. Catherine Grus, “Child Abuse: Correlations with Hostile Attributions,” Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics24:296–298 (2006).

132. Kim Logio, “Gender, Race, Childhood Abuse, and Body Image among Adolescents,” Violence Against Women 9:931–955 (2003).

133. Jeanne Kaufman and Cathy Spatz Widom, “Childhood Victimization, Running Away, and Delinquency,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 36:347–370 (1999).

134. N. N. Sarkar and Rina Sarkar, “Sexual Assault on Woman: Its Impact on Her Life and Living in Society,” Sexual and Relationship Therapy 20: 407–419 (2005).

135. Michael Wiederman, Randy Sansone, and Lori Sansone, “History of Trauma and Attempted Suicide among Women in a Primary Care Setting,” Violence and Victims 13:3–11 (1998); Susan Leslie Bryant and Lillian Range, “Suicidality in College Women Who Were Sexually and Physically Abused and Physically Punished by Parents,” Violence and Victims 10:195–215 (1995); Downs and Miller, “Relationships between Experiences of Parental Violence During Childhood and Women’s Self-Esteem”; Sally Davies-Netley, Michael Hurlburt, and Richard Hough, “Childhood Abuse as a Precursor to Homelessness for Homeless Women with Severe Mental Illness,” Violence and Victims 11:129–142 (1996).

136. Jane Siegel and Linda Williams, “Risk Factors for Sexual Victimization of Women,” Violence Against Women 9:902–930 (2003).

137. Michael Miner, Jill Klotz Flitter, and Beatrice Robinson,” Association of Sexual Revictimization with Sexuality and Psychological Function,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 21:503–524 (2006).

138. Lana Stermac and Emily Paradis, “Homeless Women and Victimization: Abuse and Mental Health History among Homeless Rape Survivors,” Resources for Feminist Research 28:65–81 (2001).

139. Richard Estes and Neil Alan Weiner, The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2001).

140. Lisa Jones and David Finkelhor, The Decline in Child Sexual Abuse Cases (Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2001).

141. Carolyn Webster-Stratton, “Comparison of Abusive and Nonabusive Families with Conduct-Disordered Children,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 55:59–69 (1985); Brandt F. Steele and Carl B. Pollock, “A Psychiatric Study of Parents Who Abuse Infants and Small Children,” in Ray Helfer and C. Henry Kempe, eds., The Battered Child (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 103–145.

142. Brandt F. Steele, “Violence within the Family,” in Ray E. Helfer and C. Henry Kempe, eds., Child Abuse and Neglect: The Family and the Community (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1976), p. 13.

143. William Sack, Robert Mason, and James Higgins, “The Single-Parent Family and Abusive Punishment,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 55:252–259 (1985).

144. Blair Justice and Rita Justice, The Abusing Family (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1976); Nanette Dembitz, “Preventing Youth Crime by Preventing Child Neglect,” American Bar Association Journal 65:920–923 (1979).

145. Douglas Ruben, Treating Adult Children of Alcoholics: A Behavioral Approach (New York: Academic Press, 2000).

146. The Relationship between Parental Alcohol or Other Drug Problems and Child Maltreatment (Chicago: Prevent Child Abuse America, 2000).

147. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, “Violence Against Stepchildren,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 5:77–81 (1996).

148. Ibid.

149. Margo Wilson, Martin Daly, and Antonietta Daniele, “Familicide: The Killing of Spouse and Children,” Aggressive Behavior21:275–291 (1995).

150. Richard Gelles, “Child Abuse and Violence in Single-Parent Families: Parent Absence and Economic Deprivation,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 59:492–501 (1989).

151. Susan Napier and Mitchell Silverman, “Family Violence as a Function of Occupation Status, Socioeconomic Class, and Other Variables,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Boston, November 1995.

152. Robert Burgess and Patricia Draper, “The Explanation of Family Violence,” in Lloyd Ohlin and Michael Tonry, eds., Family Violence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 59–117.

153. Ibid., pp. 103–104.

154. Troxel et vir. v. Granville No. 99-138 (June 5, 2000).

155. 452 U.S. 18, 101 S.Ct. 2153 (1981); 455 U.S. 745, 102 S.Ct. 1388 (1982).

156. For a survey of each state’s reporting requirements, abuse and neglect legislation, and available programs and agencies, see Costa and Nelson, Child Abuse and Neglect.

157. Linda Gordon, “Incest and Resistance: Patterns of Father-Daughter Incest, 1880–1930,” Social Problems 33:253–267 (1986).

158. P.L. 93B247 (1974); P.L. 104B235 (1996).

159. Children’s Bureau, “How the Child Welfare System Works,” May 2012, https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/cpswork.pdf#Page=3 (accessed June 2013).

160. Robin Fretwell Wilson, “Children at Risk: The Sexual Exploitation of Female Children After Divorce,” Cornell Law Review 86:251–327 (2001).

161. Sue Badeau and Sarah Gesiriech, A Child’s Journey Through the Child Welfare System (Washington, DC: The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, 2003).

162. Children’s Bureau, “How the Child Welfare System Works.”

163. The Future of Children, a publication of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, http://futureofchildren.org/ (accessed June 2013).

164. Ibid.

165. Ibid.

166. Joseph Doyle, “Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Foster Care,” American Economic Review (2008), http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fosterlt_march08_aer.pdf (accessed June 2013).

167. PBS Frontline, “Innocence Lost the Plea,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/innocence/ (accessed June 2013). For an analysis of the accuracy of children’s recollections of abuse, see Candace Kruttschnitt and Maude Dornfeld, “Will They Tell? Assessing Preadolescents’ Reports of Family Violence,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 29:136–147 (1992).

168. Debra Whitcomb, When the Victim Is a Child (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 1992), p. 33.

169. White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346; 112 S.Ct. 736 (1992).

170. Myrna Raeder, “White’s Effect on the Right to Confront One’s Accuser,” Criminal Justice, Winter 2–7 (1993).

171. Coy v. Iowa, 487 U.S. 1012 (1988).

172. Maryland v. Craig, 110 S.Ct. 3157 (1990).

173. Walker v. Fagg, 400 S.E. 2d 708 (Va. App. 1991).

174. “Preventing Child Maltreatment,” Executive Summary, The Future of Children 19 (Fall 2009), http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/docs/19_02_ExecSummary.pdf (accessed June 2013).

175. See, for example, Cesar Rebellon and Karen Van Gundy, “Can Control Theory Explain the Link between Parental Physical Abuse and Delinquency? A Longitudinal Analysis,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 42:247–274 (2005).

176. Jennifer Lansford, Laura Wager, John Bates, Gregory Pettit, and Kenneth Dodge, “Forms of Spanking and Children’s Externalizing Behaviors,” Family Relations 6:224–236 (2012).

177. Wan-Yi Chen, Jennifer Propp, Ellen deLara, and Kenneth Corvo, “Child Neglect and Its Association with Subsequent Juvenile Drug and Alcohol Offense,” Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 28:273–290 (2011).

178. Sara Culhane and Heather Taussig, “The Structure of Problem Behavior in a Sample of Maltreated Youths,” Social Work Research 33:70–78 (2009).

179. Egbert Zavala, “Testing the Link between Child Maltreatment and Family Violence among Police Officers,” Crime and Delinquency, first published online November 22, 2010.

180. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1977 Analysis of Child Abuse and Neglect Research (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 29.

181. Janet Currie and Erdal Tekin, “Does Child Abuse Cause Crime?” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 12171, 2006, http://www.nber.org/papers/w12171 (accessed June 2013).

182. Cathy Widom, “Understanding Child Maltreatment and Juvenile Delinquency: The Research,” Welfare League of America, 2010, http://www.cwla.org/programs/juvenilejustice/ucmjd03.pdf (accessed June 2013).

183. Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch, and Robert Bauserman, “A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples,” Psychological Bulletin 124:22–53 (1998).

184. Widom, “Child Abuse, Neglect, and Violent Criminal Behavior,” p. 267.

185. Matthew Zingraff, “Child Maltreatment and Youthful Problem Behavior,” Criminology 31:173–202 (1993).

186. Timothy Ireland, Carolyn Smith, and Terence Thornberry, “Developmental Issues in the Impact of Child Maltreatment on Later Delinquency and Drug Use,” Criminology 40:359–401 (2002).

187. Ibid.

188. Leonard Edwards and Inger Sagatun, “Dealing with Parent and Child in Serious Abuse Cases,” Juvenile and Family Court Journal34:9–14 (1983).

189. Susan McPherson, Lance McDonald, and Charles Ryer, “Intensive Counseling with Families of Juvenile Offenders,” Juvenile and Family Court Journal 34:27–34 (1983).

190. US Department of Education, “The Quantum Opportunity Program,” July 2, 2007, http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/intervention_reports/WWC_QOP_070207.pdf (accessed July 2013).

191. The programs in this section are described in Edward Zigler, Cara Taussig, and Kathryn Black, “Early Childhood Intervention, a Promising Preventative for Juvenile Delinquency,” American Psychologist 47: 997–1006 (1992).

192. Lawrence W. Sherman, Denise C. Gottfredson, Doris L. MacKenzie, John Eck, Peter Reuter, and Shawn D. Bushway, Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 1998).

193. Zigler, Taussig, and Black, “Early Childhood Intervention,” pp. 1000–1004.