Child abuse: causes, effects, and prevention

Child Abuse

Historical aspects and statistics of child abuse as well as its relevance to the New York City police department-NYPD today.

Child abuse is creating harm to a child or neglecting a child by another individual, whether it is an adult or a child. Child abuse can be in the nature of physical, verbal, emotional or sexual or by means of neglect as well. Abuse might result in serious forms of injury towards the child and might also lead to death. (Child Abuse: keepkidshealthy.com) Even though child abuse is considered to be an alarming social problem in the United States, yet the complex nature of its beginnings have just being started to be completely recognized. (Better understanding of Child Abuse and Neglect needed) It needs to be understood that most of the historical families had at one point of time practiced infanticide, erotic beating and that of incest. (The History of Child Abuse)

Child abuse was then considered to be matters which were involved within the family and there was nobody to interfere on behalf of an abused child. It was from the 1960s that the various states had begun to implement the reporting of laws pertaining to child abuse and emphasizing that child abuse is an important public health matter. (Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect: Protecting New York's Children) But still it needs to be noted that the reported cases of child abuse have grown at alarming rates from 416,033 per year in 1976 to that of 1,700,000 per year during the 1990's in the whole country and in New York City this is being witnessed at alarming frequencies. (Better understanding of Child Abuse and Neglect needed)

Every year, about 79,000 children are being reported and confirmed to have been abused in New York City and about 1 out of every 3 children face abuse by the time that they would have reached the age of 18. (The Children's Advocacy Center of Manhattan) Out of the 1.8 million children who live in New York City, it is found that about 450,000 are found to be in contact with that of the child welfare system at some point of time. (Did you know?) In the year 1994 about 76 out of the 131 of child fatalities and about 48,358 of the 128,111 abuses were related to the children belonging to New York City. (Chesworth, 1995-1996) A national emergency was declared in the first report of U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect published in 1990. During 1995 the Board indicated its empirical findings, reporting that there are about 3 million reports of child abuse and neglect, in respect of about 2 million children; about 1 million substantiated incidents; 141, 700 number of serious injuries and approximately 2000 child abuse fatalities in the New York City. (The Reform Plan: Chapter One: Executive Summary) Recent statistics show that in the year 2001 there have been above 45,000 cases of child abuse being estimated in New York City. (New York Child Abuse and Neglect: Identifying and Reporting) In the year 2002, about 66,686 of children were abused in New York City and about 14 to 15 out of every 1,000 children have been found to be abused here. (About Child Abuse)

2.

Discuss what the NYPD can do; has done, or in general what is being done or can be done to decrease the number of cases.

Irrespective of the heavy incidence of cases in the city the level of cooperation between the New York City Police Department and the Child Welfare Officials in the five counties are observed to be the lowest in the state. The revelations made by the New York City prosecutors, NYPD officials, Child Welfare Agency case workers, Human Resources Administration leveled plethora of excuses for such lack of cooperation among themselves and the law even does not allow such cooperation. NYPD Detective Fredrick Raymond Layne has investigated child abuse cases ever since 1985, revealed that the police notification seriously inhibited the investigation of child abuse reports. The detectives most of the time do not receive the child abuse reports for days and weeks after the abuse is first reported. A couple of programs have been devised in Kings County and elsewhere in New York City to entail for earlier involvement in child abuse cases. (Chesworth, 1995-1996)

The first one is City-wide Prompt Response Protocol. Such Protocol has been structured to ensure the police involvement early in cases of serious physical or sexual abuse of children. The New York City hospitals associated with the Protocol inform the police along with to the SCR, when involvement of serious physical and sexual abuse is assumed. Irrespective of the fact that many agencies are involved in the planning of the Kings County Center, associated with NYPD, CWA, the Victim Services Agency, the Kings County District Attorney's Office and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, neither the Center nor a fully functioning multi-disciplinary team has yet been instituted. The Investigation of cases by CWA and the police are still not conducted jointly. (Chesworth, 1995-1996) In order to reduce the number of child abuse cases what the NYPD needs to do is that the situation of each child must be individually assessed and evaluated. The vulnerable children are required to be extricated from the path of harm and ousted permanently from the family when the safety and security of the home cannot be confirmed. (The Reform Plan: Chapter One: Executive Summary) Further the amicable relationship between Police and child welfare officials goes a long way in protecting the children. (Chesworth, 1995-1996)

3. The aspects of childhood development that influence how kids react to police officers and how police officers may react to them and how they should deal with them. Types of programs that might be available to these children and their families.