Deviance on Record: Techniques for Labeling Child Abusers in Official Documents

• NCJ Number: 138450
• Journal: Social Problems Volume: 39 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1992) Pages: 58-70
• Author(s): L Margolin
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 13 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This analysis of 60 social worker case records that documented child physical abuse and 60 records that documented sexual abuse, both types by babysitters, profiles the content and emphases of these records.

Abstract

The State agency from which the records were obtained had two criteria for confirmation that a caregiver had committed child abuse: social workers must establish that a caregiver performed acts that were damaging or exploitive to a child, and they must prove that the caregiver intended to damage or exploit the child. At the beginning of each record, the social worker described the physical injuries that were believed to have been inflicted on the child by the babysitter. These descriptions did not specify how the child's health or functioning were impaired, but rather were presented as evidence that an act of transformative social import had occurred. In the cases examined, more than half of the suspected abusers either denied the accusations or were not interviewed at all in the course of the investigation. In such cases, denial or absence of the admission of guilt was not considered by the social worker to be a serious gap in the case, since suspects were routinely defined as "non-credible" witnesses. The only time their testimony was taken seriously was when they confirmed the allegations. Conversely, alleged victims were routinely viewed by social workers as "credible" witnesses, and their testimony was only rejected when they claimed suspects were innocent. Social workers developed methods for simplifying the labeling process as reflected in the official records; for example, hitting that resulted in an injury was always deemed to be intentional, and behavior viewed as sexual was always considered to be motivated by the intent to sexually exploit the victim. The reports thus fashion "proofs" of child abuse based on the new "common sense" that children's testimony is more credible than that of the adults accused, and the abusive behavior per se is proof of intent to do harm to the child. 38 references