Child Abuse and All of Its Aspects,

Child abuse and all of its aspects, affect not only the child and his immediate family, but society as a whole pays the price by this maltreatment of our youngest and most important resources. The purpose of this essay is to present two differing hypotheses on this interesting and important topic. In examining these two proposals, I'm attempting to reach new understanding and preventive measures to reducing and hopefully eliminating child abuse in the near future.

H1: Child sexual abuse incidence and future substance abuse incidence is positively correlated.

Determining risk factors for substance-abuse is often difficult with the amount of information available to the authorities today. Psychological and physiological variables certainly affect one's tendency to drift towards substance abuse and dependence. When looking at those who do abuse drugs or alcohol the upbringing and treatment of that person as a child may hold certain keys to understanding this dreaded phenomenon causing countless hours of worry and dread to those involved in these situations.

Putnam (2003) explore some of these issues in dealing with child sex abuse and the way it is reported. Putnam suggested that many of the same factors that lead to child sexual abuse are also prevalent in those who abused certain substances, including age, socioeconomic status, and race and ethnicity (p.270). The difficulty in assigning risk factors, that risk is ultimately relative and undefinable for everyone to use. Which came first the sexual abuse or the substance-abuse? We do know is that the correlation between the two is extremely positive.

H2: Better defining of child abuse will affect the procedures and statistical relevance of official reports.