Child Maltreatment in the Court System

The maltreatment of children is a vitally important issue for criminal justice professionals. It is an issue that severely impacts the most vulnerable and defenseless members of society. Recently, there has been a sharp increase in the number of child maltreatment cases being processed by the criminal justice system in this jurisdiction. This is an indication that incidents of child abuse or neglect are growing in the wider community. These concerns have been brought by child victim advocates to both the Child Protective Services for this jurisdiction and to local law enforcement agencies. A serious dilemma has been revealed. Supervisory personnel from CPS indicate that while they have the financial resources to strengthen the investigation of incidents of child maltreatment in the community, CPS regrettably lacks the volume of personnel necessary to handle the potential increase in caseload.

These issues have also been brought to the police department. It is the position of local law enforcement that while the number of law enforcement personnel needed to enhance the investigation of child maltreatment is available, the department, unfortunately, lacks the financial resources with which to pursue such investigations. This report will propose the creation of a joint task force whereby the resources of Child Protective Services, the police department, and other relevant agencies and institutions can be better utilized towards the overall purpose of enhancing and extending the investigation of child maltreatment cases in the community. The purpose of this task force would be to facilitate the more effective enforcement of public legislation enacted for the purpose of protecting children from abuse and neglect.

Dr. David Finkelhor of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire has examined the national data concerning the prevalence of child maltreatment in the United States during the period between 1990 and 2010. Dr. Finkelhor observes that very significant progress has been made in the prevention of child maltreatment on a national level. During the twenty-year period examined by Dr. Finkelhor, documented incidents of the physical abuse of children in the United States dropped by fifty-six percent, while comparable incidents of childhood sexual abuse declined by sixty-two percent (Finkelhor, Jones, & Shuttoch, 2010). These statistics indicate that the fight against child abuse in American society has been enormously successful in recent decades.

However, the abuse and neglect of children remain a serious social issue and criminal justice problem despite these gains. The Child Maltreatment Report examined by Dr. Finkelhor and other indicates that in the year 2010 alone, there were approximately 695,000 cases involving the abuse of children in the U.S. It is widely recognized that cases involving the maltreatment of children can be categorized in multiple ways (Fluke, Shusterman, Hollinshead, & Yuan, 2008). These include neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse. It is has been estimated by the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse that approximately one-half of child maltreatment cases involve neglect (National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, 1998). Between twenty and twenty-five percent include physical abuse, and roughly eight percent involve sexual abuse. For the year 2008, it is estimated that there were 1,730 fatalities of children due to maltreatment or abuse of some kind.

Clearly, the sharp decline in reported incidents of child maltreatment in recent decades is attributable in part to the enactment of more effective legislation for the purpose of addressing these problems. Such legislation has included better training for CPS personnel, enhanced investigation of incidents of child fatalities, so-called “safe haven” laws, efforts to prevent forms of abuse such as “shaken baby syndrome” through education, and increased criminal penalties for the abuse or murder of children (Lyons-Ruth, & Jacobvitz, 1999). As important as such initiatives have been such efforts will be rendered powerless if the public agencies charged with their implementation or enforcement are not properly staffed or funded. Therefore, the present dilemma in this jurisdiction involving understaffing of CPS, and the lack of financial resources available for the police investigation of crimes involving child maltreatment, is indeed a very serious matter.

The obvious question that arises is the matter of how the resources of an understaffed CPS and an underfunded police department might be combined for the purpose of more effectively enforcing laws intended to prevent the maltreatment of children. The creation of such an arrangement would be the principal responsibility of the task force being proposed in this paper. The first matter to be considered is how a task force of this kind might come into being in the first place, how its membership would be chosen, and how the task force would be funded. One issue of concern involves the matter of jurisdiction itself. The local police department is an agency of the municipal government and funded largely through municipal revenue collected through local property, excise, and other taxes that are specific to individual communities. However, Child Protective Services is a state agency operating under the umbrella of the Department of Social Services, and it is funded by the state government through state income taxes and other forms of state revenue. Further, CPS caseworkers are considered employees of the state, while police personnel are considered to be municipal employees. Clearly, the potential is great for possible conflicts of interest or jurisdictional conflicts to emerge during the course of the creation of a task force of this kind and the implementation of its objectives.

It is clear enough that the membership of the task force would have included representatives of both the state and municipal governments. Clear procedures and institutional channels would also have to be established for the purpose of resolving potential disputes of this kind as they arise. Ideally, the membership of the task force should include an equitable number of representatives of both the state and the municipality, and of the various agencies, organizations, and institutions which will be charged with carrying out the task force’s recommendations and plans of action. Unquestionably, the task force should include the head of the CPS, or some delegated representative, and the chief of police, or some delegated representative. Other public agencies or law enforcement services that will be involved in the implementation of the task force’s strategies should certainly be represented on the task force as well.

Law enforcement is the prerogative of many different agencies or institutions. These include not only the police department, but also the sheriff’s department, the various layers and divisions of the court system, the district attorney’s office, and the state police. Therefore, it is necessary that representatives of the sheriff’s department be included on the task force, and that the state police likewise appoint a member to represent their agency as well. The majority of child maltreatment cases are heard in the family or juvenile courts, so judges from these courts should be included in the task force. Because it is the district attorney’s office that prosecutes criminal cases involving child abuse, a representative of the district attorney should be appointed to the task force.

The issue of the prevention of child maltreatment is a highly sensitive one. The abuse and neglect of children impact many different areas of society, and efforts at prevention require the participation of many different kinds of professionals and institutions (Ellett, & Leighninger, 2006). Just as the various institutions and agencies of law enforcement should be included on the task force, so should the various social service agencies that encounter this issue in the course of carrying out their public duties. Obviously, these include CPS, but also medical, juvenile, educational, and other institutions that include professionals who are in a position to recognize incidents of abuse and neglect of children where they occur. For instance, the task force should certainly include physicians or other medical professionals who specialize in identifying and treating injuries or health issues experienced by children due to their maltreatment.

Many cases of child maltreatment are first recognized by school authorities and representatives of the public school system should certainly be included in the task force. There are also a variety of state and municipal services that cater to minors of all ages, from recreational leagues to jobs programs. It would be beneficial to the wider task of identifying and addressing issues of child maltreatment if professionals who are responsible for the management of these programs were to undergo training for the purpose of how to better understand these issues. Representatives from the relevant agencies in question might also be included in the task force. It might also enhance public awareness of the ongoing problem of child maltreatment if respected members of the private sector, such as clergymen, business, and civic leaders, were given positions on the task force.

The process of funding a task force of this kind should obviously be as cost-effective as possible. Preferably, the sources of funding would be varied. If funding could be procured through private sector donations, such as those granted by corporations or philanthropic organizations, this would be ideal. The advantage of relying on private funding is the avoidance of further depletion of already fiscally challenged public budgets. The primary use of private funds would also prove to be less objectionable to the public at large, and less of a political liability. The responsibility for public funding should be shared by the various levels of government involved, both the state and the municipality, and by the different participating public agencies, particularly those which are most lacking in budgetary constraints.

The principal dilemma the task force would be charged with addressing is the matter of how to address increased incidents of child maltreatment in the community, and doing so within the wider context of an understaffed Child Protective Services agency and an underfunded police department. The most immediately apparent solution to this problem would be to combine the resources of the two agencies, and to bolster these with assistance from other agencies. Because it is CPS that is primarily charged with investigating matters of child maltreatment, the bulk of the responsibility for the continued and expanded investigation of such matters should remain with CPS. The primary obstacle faced by CPS is the agency’s personnel shortage. The most logical and practical solution to this difficulty would be to appoint members of the police department to CPS for the purpose of assisting in the investigation of child maltreatment cases.

The benefit of such an arrangement is that CPS would no longer have to rely on its own internal staff of caseworkers to investigate every reported incident that arises. Instead, CPS would be assisted by police personnel who are already trained in the matter of how to conduct a public investigation involving a potential criminal justice issue. Preferably, those police personnel who were assigned to assist CPS should possess previous experience in dealing with matters of child abuse prevention and the enforcement of laws intended for that purpose. To the degree that personnel shortages or budgetary difficulties remained a significant problem, additional responsibility for assisting in the investigation of child maltreatment cases within the community could be “farmed out” to other law enforcement agencies, or other divisions of the Department of Social Services, such as those charged with the prevention of elder abuse.

The function of the task force would be to supervise, coordinate, and procure funding for arrangements such as these. The task force should also develop a comprehensive plan of action for implementing child maltreatment prevention strategies for the community. Further, the task force should compile periodic reports concerning its activities, budgetary expenditures, and provide assessments of the effectiveness of its work. Child abuse and neglect is a contributing factor to many severe social problems such as juvenile delinquency, crime, drug abuse, health care costs, school discipline, declining educational achievement, teen sexual promiscuity and unwanted pregnancies, prostitution, and other ills (Cohen, Mannarino, Murray, L.K., & Igelman, 2006). Clearly, everyone in the community has a stake in the prevention of child maltreatment. For these reasons, public resources and agencies devoted to such should be given the support necessary to ensure their ongoing success.

References

Ellett, A. J., & Leighninger, L. (2006). What happened? An historical perspective of the de-professionalization of child welfare practice with implications for policy and practice. Journal of Public Child Welfare 1 (1): 3–34.doi:10.1300/J479v01n01_02

Cohen, J.A., Mannarino, A.P., Murray, L.K., & Igelman, R. (2006). Psychosocial interventions for maltreated and violence-exposed children. Journal of Social

Issues 62 (4): 737–766 doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2006.00485.x

Finkelhor, D., Jones, L., & Shuttuch, A. (2010). Updated trends in child maltreatment.University of New Hampshire, Crimes Against Children Research Center.Retrieved from http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV203_Updated%20trends%202010%20FINAL_12-19-11.pdf

Fluke, J. D.; Shusterman, G. R., Hollinshead, D. M., & Yuan, Y.-Y. (2008). Longitudinal analysis of repeated child abuse reporting and victimization: multi-state analysis of associated factors. Child Maltreatment: 76–88.

Lyons-Ruth K. & Jacobvitz, D. (1999) Attachment disorganization: unresolved loss, relational violence and lapses in behavioral and attention strategies.

Cassidy, J. &Shaver, P. (Eds.) Handbook of attachment. New York: Guilford Press, 520-554. National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (1998). Child abuse and neglect statistics.Retrieved fromhttp://web.archive.org/web/19980515052303/http://childabuse.org/facts97.html