NCJ Number
135773
Date Published
1990
Length
369 pages
Annotation
This book documents how many current policies of child abuse reporting, child abuse investigation, and child abuse case dispositions are not only failing to address adequately the cases of real abuse but are contributing to the harassment of nonabusing parents and nonabused children through false accusations, incompetent investigations, and case dispositions that violate parents' and children's constitutional rights.
Abstract
Regarding legal mandates for child abuse reporting, the book concludes that almost all persons who deal with children in the course of their work have been turned into informers, required to report any suspicion of any form of child maltreatment; the general public has been encouraged to do the same. Such reports may be made anonymously, making the system a potential tool for harassment. Regarding investigators of child abuse allegations, the author believes that untrained, inexperienced, and incompetent "child-protection" workers have been given the authority to label parents as abusers and even to remove children from their homes and families. In child abuse cases, traditional burdens of proof and standards of evidence have been relaxed both in the investigative process and in court. Families have not been adequately protected against unreasonable searches and seizures. In the course of attempting to respond to every allegation of child abuse, sparse resources are thinly spread across multitudes of cases, such that the cases of genuine and severe abuse are not adequately addressed. This book favors Wald's model law presented in "Standards Relating to Abuse and Neglect" (1981) as a means for improving the effectiveness of official responses to child abuse allegations. Additional recommendations are offered. Appended chapter notes and a subject index