Child Abuse
There is no other crime more emotionally laden than those involving children. Police officers and investigators speak about the intense associated with those cases. Sometimes these people who are involved in crimes against children have to go therapy because of the severity of the case. Unfortunately, incidents of crime against children are increasing dramatically every year. Every year thousands of children become victims of crime, whether it’s through kidnappings, violent attacks, sexual abuse, or online predators.
Child abuse has a lengthy history. Children have been subject to abuse by their parents or other adults since presumably the beginning of time. For many centuries laws failed to protect children from abuse. Children under English common law were considered the property of their fathers, as women were considered property of their husbands, until the late 1800s. American colonists in the 16th and 17th centuries carried the tradition of children being property of their fathers to the early years of the United States.
In the early 1870s, child abuse captured the nation's attention with news that an 8 year old orphan named Mary Ellen Wilson was suffering daily whippings and beatings at her foster home. With no organization in existence to protect abused children, the orphan's plight fell to attorneys for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). These attorneys argued that laws protecting animals from abuse should not be greater than laws protecting children. Mary Ellen Wilson's case went before a judge, who convicted the foster mother of assault and battery and gave her a 1 year sentence. More significantly, the orphan's case generated enough outrage over child abuse that in 1874, citizens formed the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Child abuse captured the country's attention again in 1962, when an article appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association described symptoms of child abuse and deemed child abuse to be medically diagnosable. Within 10 years, every state had statutes known as "mandatory reporting" laws. Mandatory reporting laws require certain professionals, such as doctors and teachers, to report suspected child abuse to the state child protective services agency or other proper authorities. A 1974 federal law, the Child Abuse Prevention & Treatment Act (CAPTA), further bolstered efforts to eliminate child abuse by funding programs to help individuals identify and report child abuse and to provide shelter and other protective services to victims. However, child abuse continues despite these and subsequent child abuse prevention laws.
All states have child abuse laws that are designed to help protect children at each stage in the timeline of abuse. For the first stage, states have implemented mandatory and permissive reporting laws with immunity (and in most states, anonymity) granted to reporters of known or suspected child abuse. Mandatory and permissive reporting laws help to raise awareness of child abuse and bring the authorities in early to intervene. The second stage of child abuse laws are definitional in nature. States differ quite a bit on what constitutes child abuse, especially when it comes to exemptions.
At the third stage comes administrative services, where the courts work with social services to determine a safe and supportive environment for the child if the child is to be taken away from his or her family. Each state has vastly different statutory law and case law, and much of this process is up to the discretion of a judge, so if you have an issue at this stage of the process, it is critical that you seek the help of a qualified attorney.
Below is a sampling of the variety of some states about child abuse laws: * Arizona Statute defines child abuse as inflicting or allowing physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, emotional/mental injury, or abandonment of a child under the age of 18. Statute contains an exemption for Christian Scientists or unavailability of reasonable resources for a parent's failure to obtain medical help for the child. * Arkansas Statute defines child abuse as intentionally, knowingly, or negligently without cause inflicting physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, abandonment or emotional/mental injury of a child under the age of 18. Statute contains exemptions for poverty or corporal punishment. * California Statute defines child abuse as inflicting by non-accidental means physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, or sexual exploitation of a child under the age of 18. Statute contains exemptions for religion, reasonable force, and informed medical decision. The most common cause of child deaths is physical abuse, often perpetrated by the parents. Many people who abuse of a child are not mentally ill. Abuse of children takes various forms, from minor assaults to flagrant physical torture. Many times these injuries cannot or will not be explained by parents, or the story seems inconsistent with the injuries received. People sometimes have experienced stress on their lives and because of that, parents try to excuse their abuse on children. There is no excuse to make some injury to children. The possibility of abuse should be considered for any child exhibiting evidence of bone fracture, sub dermal hematoma, soft-tissue swelling, or skin bruising. One of the most common instruments used to physically abuse children is the belt. While the leather portion of a belt can inflict significant pain, the buckle end can cause serious injuries to young children.
Our most defenseless children are the most likely to be burned intentionally. Child abuse burn victims are almost always under the age of 10 with the majority under the age of two. Burn injuries make up about 10 percent of all child abuse cases, and about 10 percent of hospital admissions of children to burn units are the result of child abuse. In comparison with accidentally burned children, abused children are significantly younger and have longer hospital stays and higher mortality rates. Children are burned for different reasons. Immersion burns may occur during toilet training, with the perpetrator immersing the child in scalding water for cleaning or punishment. Hands may be immersed in pots of water for playing near the stove. A person may place a child in an oven for punishment or with homicidal intentions.
A pedophile is someone who “loves” children. This love of children is a sexual interest, which ranges from fondling to mutilation and murder. There are two recognized types of pedophiles: The situational child molester has few victims. This type of molester does not have a true sexual interest in children, but will experiment with them when the opportunity presents itself. These molestations are often the result of dealing with stress and poor self-esteem issues. The regressed child molester a situational occurrence that impels this pedophile to turn to children as temporary objects of sexual gratification. The morally indiscriminate child molester is an abuser of all available persons, including children. The naïve or inadequate child molester includes those persons who are suffering from some form of mental disorder that renders them unable to make the distinction between right and wrong. The preferential child molester prefers children to adults as providers of sexual satisfaction. Their interest in children is persistent and compulsive. Of the two types of offenders the preferential child molester is the most likely type to be very dangerous to children. The fixated child molester selects children as sexual objects because they are less demanding, easily dominated and less critical. The sadistic child molester gets sexual gratification and personal violence. The “mushroom factor” –diligent inquiry will disclose a network of other incidents, victims and pedophiles. Pedophiles can be found wherever children are found, including the Internet where chat rooms are used to engage children in discussions and possible meetings.
Another crime against children is sexual exploitation. The sexual exploitation of children is a particularly heinous offense in our society. The primary areas of child sexual abuse include child molestation, child pornography, and sex tourism. Sex tourism often involves visiting foreign countries for the purposes of acquiring sexual activities with children, but according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), more than 600,000 may be involved in child prostitution in the United States. It is estimated that at least two out of every ten girls and one out of every ten boys are sexually abused by the end of the 13th year. Sex tourism allows pedophiles, mostly men, to either arrange a trip through a travel agency that specializes in sex tours, or arrange travel themselves to an area known for child prostitution and child sex trafficking. Some of these travel agencies are virtual, on Internet based, and can be found among networks of child pornographers. Nevertheless, sex tourism is a difficult crime to investigate, prosecute, and prevent. The actions of foreign governments can implicitly encourage the industry by directly targeting sex tourists or refusing to assist in the investigations of such crimes.
A pedophile is someone who “loves” children. This love of children is a sexual interest, which ranges from fondling to mutilation and murder. There are two recognized types of pedophiles: The situational child molester has few victims. This type of molester does not have a true sexual interest in children, but will experiment with them when the opportunity presents itself. These molestations are often the result of dealing with stress and poor self-esteem issues. The regressed child molester a situational occurrence that impels this pedophile to turn to children as temporary objects of sexual gratification. The morally indiscriminate child molester is an abuser of all available persons, including children. The naïve or inadequate child molester includes those persons who are suffering from some form of mental disorder that renders them unable to make the distinction between right and wrong. The preferential child molester prefers children to adults as providers of sexual satisfaction. Their interest in children is persistent and compulsive. Of the two types of offenders the preferential child molester is the most likely type to be very dangerous to children. The fixated child molester selects children as sexual objects because they are less demanding, easily dominated and less critical. The sadistic child molester gets sexual gratification and personal violence. The “mushroom factor” –diligent inquiry will disclose a network of other incidents, victims and pedophiles. Pedophiles can be found wherever children are found, including the Internet where chat rooms are used to engage children in discussions and possible meetings.
Child molestation is a crime involving a range of indecent or sexual activities between an adult and a child, usually under the age of 14. Inpsychiatric terms, these acts are sometimes known as pedophilia. It is important, however, to keep in mind that child molestation and child sexual abuse refer to specific, legally defined actions. They do not necessarily imply that the perpetrator bears bears a particular psychological makeup or motive. For example, not all incidents of child molestation are perpetrated by pedophiles; sometimes the perpetrator has othermotives for his or her actions and does not manifest an ongoing pattern of sexual attraction to children. Thus, not all child molestation is perpetrated by pedophiles, and not all pedophiles actually commit child molestation.
There is no single profile that accurately describes or accounts for all child molester. There are many variables among individuals in terms of their personal characteristics, life experiences, criminal histories, and reasons for committing such offenses. One common misconception isthat molested children grow up to become child molesters themselves. But, in fact, most childhood sexual abuse victims do not go on tobecome perpetrators. In some instances, if a child is sexually victimized, and is abused in other ways as well, he or she may later molest achild. Likewise, a sexually abused child who also exhibits antisocial behavior may go on to commit acts of child molestation, although anindividual's inadequate social and interpersonal skills do not make it inevitable that he will sexually abuse children. It can be very difficult to talk about sexual abuse and even more difficult to acknowledge that sexual abuse of children of all ages including infants happens every day. Sexual abuse of children has become the subject of great community concern and the focus of many legislative and professional initiatives. When sexual abuse occurs the child victim may be the only witness and the child’s statements may be the only evidence. In such cases, the central issue sometimes becomes whether the child’s statements can be trusted. A friend of mine who works on child welfare says that children never lie about sexual abuse and that their statements must always be believed. Child sexual abuse cases can be very difficult to prove largely because cases where definitive, objective evidence exists are the exception rather than the rule. The first indicators of sexual abuse may not be physical, but rather behavioral changes or abnormalities. Unfortunately, because it can be so difficult to accept that sexual abuse may be occurring, the adult may misinterpret the signals and feel that the child is merely being disobedient or insolent.
Another common crime against children is child pornography. Child pornography can be behaviorally defined as the sexually explicit reproduction of a child’s image and include sexually explicit photographs, negatives, slides, magazines and computer disks. Over the past decade, several important laws have been proposed and adopted to deal with the issue of child sexual exploitation on the Internet. For example, the Child Protection and Sexual Predator Punishment Act of 1998 specifically addressed the issues of online sexual victimization of children. The law prohibits the transfer of sexually explicit material to minors, and increases penalties for offenses against children. Emphasis on the prosecution of child pornography has become a priority for federal authorities presumably because of the explosion of such activity via internet. In the last decade, federal prosecutions for child pornography possession nearly tripled nationwide, and in some states, more child porn cases were filed that traditional federal crimes such as mail and wire fraud and bank robbery. Child abduction is the unauthorized removal of a minor (a child under the age of legal adulthood) from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians. According to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in the USA an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing every year, of which 97% are recovered. The term child abduction conflates two legal and social categories which differ by their perpetrating contexts: abduction by members of the child's family or abduction by strangers. A family relative's (usually parent's) unauthorized custody of a child without parental agreement and contrary to family law ruling, which largely removes the child from care, access and contact of the other parent and family side. Occurring around parental separation or divorce, such parental or familial child abduction may include parental alienation, a form of child abuse seeking to disconnect a child from targeted parent and denigrated side of family. The other one is abduction or kidnapping by strangers (from outside the family, natural or legal guardians) who steal a child for criminal purposes like extortion, illegal adoption, human trafficking or murder.
Example of a child abuse case:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
OHIO v. CLARK
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
No. 13–1352. Argued March 2, 2015—Decided June 18, 2015
Respondent Darius Clark sent his girlfriend away to engage in prostitution while he cared for her 3-year-old son L. P. and 18-month-old daughter A. T. When L. P.’s preschool teachers noticed marks on his body, he identified Clark as his abuser. Clark was subsequently tried on multiple counts related to the abuse of both children. At trial, the State introduced L. P.’s statements to his teachers as evidence of Clark’s guilt, but L. P. did not testify. The trial court denied Clark’s motion to exclude the statements under the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause. A jury convicted Clark on all but one count. The state appellate court reversed the conviction on Confrontation Clause grounds, and the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed. Held: The introduction of L. P.’s statements at trial did not violate the Confrontation Clause. Pp. 4–12. (a) This Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36, 54, held that the Confrontation Clause generally prohibits the introduction of “testimonial” statements by a non-testifying witness, unless the witness is “unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination.” A statement qualifies as testimonial if the “primary purpose” of the conversation was to “creat[e] an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony.” Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U. S. 344, 369. In making that “primary purpose” determination, courts must consider “all of the relevant circumstances.” Ibid. “Where no such primary purpose exists, the admissibility of a statement is the concern of state and federal rules of evidence, not the Confrontation Clause.” Id., at 359. But that does not mean that the Confrontation Clause bars every statement that satisfies the “primary purpose” test. The Court has recognized that the Confrontation Clause does not prohibit the introduction of out-of-court statements that would have been admissible in a criminal case at the 2 OHIO v. CLARK Syllabus time of the founding. See Giles v. California, 554 U. S. 353, 358–359; Crawford, 541 U. S., at 56, n. 6, 62. Thus, the primary purpose test is a necessary, but not always sufficient, condition for the exclusion of out-of-court statements under the Confrontation Clause. Pp. 4–7. (b) Considering all the relevant circumstances, L. P.’s statements were not testimonial. L. P.’s statements were not made with the primary purpose of creating evidence for Clark’s prosecution. They occurred in the context of an ongoing emergency involving suspected child abuse. L. P.’s teachers asked questions aimed at identifying and ending a threat. They did not inform the child that his answers would be used to arrest or punish his abuser. L. P. never hinted that he intended his statements to be used by the police or prosecutors. And the conversation was informal and spontaneous. L. P.’s age further confirms that the statements in question were not testimonial because statements by very young children will rarely, if ever, implicate the Confrontation Clause. As a historical matter, moreover, there is strong evidence that statements made in circumstances like these were regularly admitted at common law. Finally, although statements to individuals other than law enforcement officers are not categorically outside the Sixth Amendment’s reach, the fact that L. P. was speaking to his teachers is highly relevant. Statements to individuals who are not principally charged with uncovering and prosecuting criminal behavior are significantly less likely to be testimonial than those given to law enforcement officers. Pp. 7–10. (c) Clark’s arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive. Mandatory reporting obligations do not convert a conversation between a concerned teacher and her student into a law enforcement mission aimed at gathering evidence for prosecution. It is irrelevant that the teachers’ questions and their duty to report the matter had the natural tendency to result in Clark’s prosecution. And this Court’s Confrontation Clause decisions do not determine whether a statement is testimonial by examining whether a jury would view the statement as the equivalent of in-court testimony. Instead, the test is whether a statement was given with the “primary purpose of creating an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony.” Bryant, supra, at 358. Here, the answer is clear: L. P.’s statements to his teachers were not testimonial. Pp. 11–12. 137 Ohio St. 3d 346, 2013–Ohio–4731, 999 N. E. 2d 592, reversed and remanded. To conclude we need to teach our children what appropriate sexual behavior is and when to say ‘’no’’ if someone tries to touch sexual parts of their bodies or touch them in any way that makes them feel uncomfortable. Also, we need to observe our children when they interact with others to see if they are hesitant or particularly uncomfortable around certain adults. It is critical to provide adequate supervision for our children and only leave them in the care of individuals whom we deem safe. There is a lot of programs to help us with crimes against children and if we suspect sexual abuse and believe a child to be in imminent danger, we should report it to the local child protective services agency in our country or state. Also we can use the amber alert. The AMBER alert program is voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, state transportation officials and radio, television and Internet broadcasters to active an urgent news bulletin in child abduction cases. We have to remember that we may be the only person in a position to help a child who is being sexually abused.

WORKS CITED
FBI. "Violent Crimes against Children." / / Crime Areas / Internet / Home. Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015
Swanson, Charles R., Neil C. Chamelin, and Leonard Territo. "Crimes Against Children." Criminal Investigation. 11th ed. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear Pub., 1977. 298-340. Print.
Zickler, Patrick (April 2002). "Childhood Sex Abuse ". NIDA Notes (National Institute of Drug Abuse) n.d Web. 10 Dec. 2015