Child abuse Investigations

Child abuse and child molestation have been sociologically and legally defined in a variety of ways, and their definitions have changed over time. Child abuse and child molestation can be subsumed under the more general heading of child maltreatment. Child maltreatment includes neglect, child endangerment, emotional and psychological abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. Child neglect is not providing for the needs of a minor child, generally in matters of feeding, sheltering, clothing, educating, or providing for medical needs. For example, neglect cases have come up in the courts that concern parents who have not placed their children in school or have refused to seek medical treatment based on religious beliefs.

SIGNIFICANCE: Child abuse and child molestation are significant social problems that affect the physical and mental health of more than one million American children every year.

Child endangerment occurs when adults who are responsible for the care of children expose the children to potentially or actually dangerous situations. These can range from leaving children unattended in cars while running errands to leaving children home alone for extended periods. Emotional and psychological abuse includes name-calling, belittling, threatening, and terrorizing. Physical abuse includes shaking (including shaken-baby syndrome), hitting, slapping, punching, kicking, beating, striking with objects, stabbing, cutting, burning, and choking. The most severe instances of physical abuse can lead to death.

Sexual abuse includes all forms of sexual contact between minors and adults, from improper touching and fondling to forced vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse. Sexual abuse may also include sexual contact between two minors when a significant age difference exists between them; in some jurisdictions, a difference of three or four years in age constitutes a significant difference. Sexual abuse may also encompass activities such as encouraging minors to watch or to be involved in the making of pornography or child pornography.

Legal definitions of child abuse, and subtypes of abuse, vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and rely upon particular state statutes. In contrast to sociological definitions of abuse that may be vague and open to different interpretations, legal definitions and individual statutes specify exactly what particular abusive behaviors are illegal.

Child Abuse and Molestation in History

Throughout history, human societies have often treated their own children unkindly. Many actions that most Americans would today consider to be abusive have been commonplace throughout the world. For example, infanticide has been common in many parts of the world and still continues in some regions. Especially common is female infanticide and the killing of children with disabilities in developing nations. Some modern and industrialized nations also practice the selective termination of female fetuses and fetuses with disabilities.

Because of the high infant mortality rate during the Middle Ages, many children born in that era were not even named until they reached the age of five. Prior to the enactment of compulsory schooling laws during the early twentieth century, education was generally reserved for only wealthy children and was more available to boys than to girls. Before the introduction of child labor laws during the early twentieth century, many children in Europe and North America worked as many as twelve hours a day in factories. Before the era of urban factories, rural children worked equally long hours on farms. In many modern developing nations, young children, especially girls, work as prostitutes to support their families. Children may also be sold to provide money for families. In modern Southeast Asian countries, many children still work in factories for low wages. Even in the United States, many children work without wages and for long hours in businesses owned by their parents.

During the nineteenth century, movements such as the Child-Savers sought to improve the lot of children. However, much of the movement was driven by the need of middle-class white women to control what they saw as unruly and dangerous immigrant children. Rather than improve the conditions in which children lived and labored, the movement often criminalized their actions and placed the children under the control of social services or within the criminal justice system. In 1875, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed.

The first juvenile court system was founded in Chicago in 1899. Prior to that time, children were treated in much the same ways as adults in the legal system. They could be charged with crimes as adults and incarcerated in adult jails and prisons. These conditions naturally created atmospheres ripe for abuse. With the founding of the juvenile justice system in Chicago, the American criminal justice system began to see children and their crimes as different from adults and in need of a different response, different treatment, and especially different housing arrangements, away from predatory adults.

Early researchers found a strong correlation between alcohol abuse by parents and abuse of children. The desire to curb violence against children helped fuel the temperance movement and prohibition movement. Even today, there is a strong correlation between parental abuse of substances and abuse of children. Significant advances in the protection of children were encouraged by the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s that focused attention on the abuses perpetrated by men in their own homes against women and children.

Prevalence

In criminal justice the “dark figure of crime” is a frequently discussed phrase referring to the fact that, on average, only half the crimes that are committed are brought to the attention of law enforcement. Moreover, certain types of crimes, such as rape, are even less likely to be reported than other crimes. There is also a “dark figure of child abuse,” which makes it difficult to estimate the actual prevalence of child abuse and child molestation. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families has consistently estimated that child-protective services agencies across the country receive more than 50,000 allegations of child maltreatment each week. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 stated that approximately one million children each year were the victims of maltreatment in the United States. By the early twenty-first century, approximately one million cases of child maltreatment reported to child-protective services were substantiated annually.

By far, the most common form of child maltreatment dealt with by child-protective services is neglect. This accounts for about half of the substantiated victims of maltreatment, or approximately 500,000 neglected children each year.

Although neglect is most commonly dealt with by child-protective services, emotional abuse is probably the most prevalent form of abuse. Emotional abuse is so common that it often occurs unnoticed. Many jurisdictions have not enacted specific laws to criminalize emotional abuse, so it is infrequently dealt with through the criminal justice system unless it occurs in conjunction with other forms of abuse that are perceived as being more severe. However, the long-term effects on a young child’s psyche of such forms of emotional abuse as being yelled at, belittled, threatened, and terrorized should not be minimized.

Among the factors that increase the likelihood of a child’s being victimized are younger age, having a disability, alcohol or substance abuse in the home, and having previously come into contact with child-protective services. Younger children are more likely to be victimized and are more likely to die as a result of victimization. The youngest children cannot “tell” anyone of their victimization. Unless injuries are apparent, or incidents of abuse are witnessed by third parties, they often go unnoticed. The younger children are, the greater the risks of abuse that they face. Abuse of children under the age of six is frequently brought to the attention of authorities by medical personnel who may treat victims repeatedly in emergency room settings. The vast differences in size between very young children and adults make younger children more likely than older children to suffer severe harm or death from physical abuse.

Children with disabilities are at increased risk for being abused. This is due to several factors. Their disabilities may interfere with their speech, mobility, or cognition, making these children easier targets for victimization. Often unable even to understand that they are being victimized, children with disabilities may be unable to move away from attacks or unable to tell others about what has occurred. The stress of raising children with disabilities also increases the likelihood of parents treating them in inappropriate or abusive manners.

Parents who abuse alcohol or other substances are more likely to become perpetrators of abuse than parents who do not abuse substances. Individuals who abuse substances are frequently under significant stress themselves. Rather than increase their users’ ability to cope with stress, substances have the opposite effect. Abuse of substances also diminishes cognitive reasoning abilities and increases the likelihood of violence. Alcohol and drugs also lower inhibitions.

Many children who come into contact with child-protective services have had prior contact with the agencies. This may indicate that too often child-protective agencies return children to abusive homes for further victimization. Among substantiated victims of child maltreatment, African American children are overrepresented. It is difficult to ascertain whether this can be attributed to higher rates of abuse among this segment of the population, or whether child-protective agencies are more likely to substantiate abuse allegations when the perpetrators are members of minorities.

During the early twenty-first century, annual deaths from child maltreatment were estimated at slightly less than 2 per 100,000 children. In 75 percent of such cases, the victims are under the age of four.

Investigation

The U.S. Congress enacted the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 to address concerns about alarmingly high rates of child maltreatment. The law provided incentives for states to address this problem in a variety of ways, including research, prosecution, and treatment. The act does two important things. It encourages individuals to report suspected child abuse by providing immunity from prosecution—a protection traditionally granted in the criminal justice system only by judges and prosecutors. The act also mandates the reporting of child maltreatment by certain persons who come into contact with children in their professional capacities.

Two types of investigations may occur into allegations of child abuse or molestation. Child-protective agencies may investigate allegations of abuse and local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies may conduct investigations. These investigations are usually conducted independently, sometimes with little coordination. Although it may seem sensible for cases in which child-protective agencies have found abuse to be turned over to law enforcement for prosecution, this does not always occur. Generally, abuse allegations are investigated by child-protective services prior to the states considering filing charges against individuals. Investigations by child-protective services begin with the initial contacts with the relevant agencies. About one-third of these initial contacts are not followed up by the agencies; they are either passed on other agencies or dropped because of insufficient information.

Any person may report suspected child abuse, but professionals who work with children—such as teachers, therapists, doctors, and nurses—must report suspected abuse to protective agencies. Roughly half of all abuse allegations come from professionals. Although these people are mandated to report suspected abuse, even mandated reporters do not report all instances of suspected abuse. Many individuals who are mandated reporters may not be trained to spot possible abuse, or they may not want to report suspected abuse for a variety of reasons. These factors contribute, in part, to the significant underreporting of abuse.

Although there are significant variations in the lengths of time required for investigations to begin, investigations of high-priority cases generally begin within forty-eight hours of the initial contacts with child-protective services. The more severe is the suspected abuse, the quicker is the response. Child-protective service investigations generally include interviewing the children privately in neutral locations such as schools, interviewing parents of the children, and interviewing the alleged perpetrators. Other individuals involved with the children may be interviewed as necessary.

If instances of abuse have only recently occurred and physical evidence, such as bruises, may be detectable, the children may be taken to medical facilities for examination and documentation of the abuse. Examinations may include photographing bruises or x-raying bones. Under certain circumstances, if a child is believed to be in immediate physical danger, the child may be removed from his or her home and placed into temporary foster care.

Once an investigation is complete, a determination, or disposition, is made as to whether or not abuse has occurred. Although the individual states use a wide variety of terms for these dispositions, the terms generally correspond to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families dispositions of “indicated,” “substantiated,” and “unsubstantiated.” Although reports of abuse continue to increase, the percentage of reports that eventually receive dispositions of “unsubstantiated” is rising, totaling about 60 percent of all reports.

In the 2010s and 2020s, criminal and civil investigations into child abuse at institutions such as churches, schools, residential care facilities, and police departments continued to make headlines. For example, in 2018, the attorney general of Pennsylvania relased a 900-page report detailing allegations of widespread child sexual abuse by 300 Catholic Church priests involving at least 1,000 children across the state. The Pennsylvania report spurred similar investigations into the Catholic Church in twenty other states by mid-2023. A Washington Post investigation published in 2024 found that between 2005 and 2022 more than 1,800 law enforcement officers had been charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse and that 90 percent of their victims were not reported to be related to the accused officers.

Prosecution

Most child-abuse and child molestation cases in the United States are not prosecuted through the criminal justice system. Even those cases in which child-protective agencies have determined that abuse is substantiated are often not criminally prosecuted. This is due to significant differences in goals and standards of proof between child-protective agencies and criminal justice agencies. Moreover, the prioritizing of cases within the criminal justice system for prosecution makes it unlikely that most child-maltreatment cases are prosecuted.

The goals of child-protective agencies and the goals of criminal justice agencies differ greatly. One of the goals of child-protective services is to keep families together. By contrast, a primary goal of the criminal justice system is to punish offenders. Generally, the prosecuting and possible sentencing to jail terms of family members, especially parents, is contradictory to the goal of keeping families together. For child-protective services it is frequently difficult to balance the dual goals of protecting children with keeping families together. In fact, these goals may be irreconcilable, considering the fact that the vast majority of all children who are injured or killed are victimized by their parents within their own homes.

The standards of proof used in the investigation carried out by child-protective services differ substantially from the standards of proof used in criminal courtrooms. There are no specific standards for what burden of proof a “substantiated” case must reach, but in all criminal cases, the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. It is difficult for many cases of child abuse and child molestation, even those which child-protective services have found to be substantiated, to reach this high burden of proof.

The standard procedure for deciding which cases brought to the attention of the criminal justice system should be actively prosecuted makes it likely that child-maltreatment cases are “selected out” of the system. Within the criminal justice system, decisions to proceed with cases are made by prosecutors. Cases that are most likely to be prosecuted within the system are those in which complaints are filed within relatively short periods of time after the crimes occur, those for which significant physical evidence exists, and those with credible witnesses.

Normally, only cases of severe child maltreatment are brought to the attention of the criminal justice system. Other cases are handled solely by child-protective agencies. Although the criminal justice system could prosecute cases of child sexual abuse, even they are infrequently prosecuted. Child molestation especially is unlikely to come to light until long after the abusive events occur. Indeed, many victims of molestation do not reveal their experiences to anyone until years afterward. Evidence presents other problems. Generally, only the most severe forms of physical and sexual abuse create physical evidence. However, even this evidence may be lost if the abuse is not reported quickly.

Problems with Child Witnesses

The nature of abuse crimes causes them frequently to be committed either within the privacy of family homes or in situations in which only the victims and perpetrators are present. Victims thus are generally the sole witnesses—apart from the perpetrators—of their own abuse. One of the difficulties that prosecutors face in successfully prosecuting perpetrators of child abuse and child molestation is working with child witnesses. The criminal justice system, correctly or not, has historically viewed child witnesses as less truthful than adult witnesses. Interviewing child witnesses also presents special problems since children are especially susceptible to leading questioning. Moreover, the youngest victims of abuse crimes many not have even learned to speak.

In many instances, the experience of being a witness for the prosecution can be as traumatic for child victims as the actual incidents of victimization they have experienced. However, defendants are guaranteed the right of confronting and questioning their accusers. Officials in the justice system must thus weigh the possibility of further trauma to children against the constitutional rights of the defendants.

Punishment

Responses to child abuse or child molestation are more likely to come from child-protective service agencies than from the criminal justice system. Child-protective services may choose to remove children from their homes, but the services generally do not remove children from homes if they are shown that the children will remain safe. When children are removed and put into foster care, it is generally for only limited periods of time. It is rare for parental rights to be terminated. Contrary to popular perceptions fueled by media accounts of a few children who have died while in foster homes, children are rarely injured or killed while in foster care.

Criminal justice sanctions against offenders are infrequent. The most common sanction is probation. Prison sentences are rare. By far, the average drug offender receives a much lengthier sentence than the average child abuser or child molester. The child-abuse perpetrators who are least likely to face punishment by the criminal justice system are those offenders who are related to their victims. This is true even though it may be these same offenders who cause the most severe and longest lasting trauma to their victims.

Bibliography

Barnett, O., and C. Miller-Perrin. Family Violence Across the Lifespan: An Introduction. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1997. Print.

Best, J. Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern About Child-Victims. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. Print.

Briere, J., and American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment. Thousand Oaks.: Sage, 1996. Print.

Conte, Jon R. Child Abuse and Neglect Worldwide. 3 vols. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014. Print.

Contrera, Jessica, et al. "Abused by the Badge: A Police Officer Took a Teen for a Rape Kit. Then He Assaulted Her Too." The Washington Post, 14 Mar. 2024, www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2024/new-orleans-police-child-sexual-abuse-rodney-vicknair/. Accessed 21 May 2024.

DuPre, D'Michelle P., and Jerri Sites. Child Abuse Investigation Field Guide. Boston: Academic, 2015. Print.

Graham, Ruth. "What the Latest Investigations into Catholic Church Sex Abuse Mean." The New York Times, 2 June 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-investigations.html. Accessed 21 May 2024.

Kempe, H., and R. Helfer. The Battered Child. 3rd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980. Print.

LeRoy, A. Endangered Children: Dependency, Neglect, and Abuse in American History. New York: Twayne, 1997. Print.

Mathews, Ben, and Donald C. Bross, eds. Mandatory Reporting Laws and the Identification of Severe Child Abuse and Neglect. New York: Springer, 2015. Print.

Van Dam, C. Identifying Child Molesters. Binghamton: Haworth, 2001. Print.