"A new report from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids describes strategies that have proven their effectiveness in preventing child abuse and neglect. Chicago's government-funded Child-Parent Centers have served 100,000 3- and 4-year-olds since 1967. Over a period of 14 years, researchers tracked 1,000 of the children who were in the program compared with 550 similar children not in the program. Findings indicate that the program cut rates of child abuse and neglect in half. The Nurse Family Partnership in Elmira, NY, randomly assigned mothers at risk for child abuse and neglect to receive instructional home visits by nurses. As a result of the program, there were 80 percent fewer incidents of child abuse among participants compared to those not enrolled. Children from families not in the program had twice as many arrests by age 15 as the children of participants. The Center for Addiction and Pregnancy in Baltimore, MD, provided 1 week of residential care and then intensive day treatment up until the delivery of each child for 100 drug-abusing, pregnant women. The addicted women not in the program were over two and one-half times more likely to deliver low birth weight babies and were twice as likely to be using illicit drugs at the time of their delivery compared to the women who received treatment. This program is significant for crime prevention, because neurological injuries to children born of drug-abusing mothers place them at greater risk of psychological problems that can lead to violent behavior later in life. There must be a greater investment in proven child abuse prevention programs at all levels of government. Such investments are cost-effective because of the huge costs to individuals and society of the consequences that flow from child abuse and neglect."
"Current medical-legal issues that are common to both the civil and criminal contexts are examined against the backdrop of states' various approaches to maternal ingestions of illicit substances during pregnancy, varying standards for the mandatory reporting of child maltreatment, and religious exceptions or exemptions relating to the reporting or prosecution of child maltreatment. The article concludes with recommendations for systemic reform."
"This article explores the impact of the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect by analyzing the repercussions of erroneous reports. The consequences of investigating reports that do not result in an intervention by the child welfare agencies can be very serious because these diminish the already over-extended resources of these agencies. The consequences of over-burdening the child welfare system through this misallocation of investigative resources can be devastating for a high volume of children who remain at risk but whose needs are not properly addressed. Mandatory reporting exacerbates the tensions inherent in the child welfare system between the social responsibility of protecting children at risk of harm, and a similar obligation to shore up families who are distressed. As one way to reduce the over-reporting of spurious incidents of child abuse or neglect, this article argues for some professional discretion in deciding when to report suspected circumstances."
"This Article proposes a way to fill the gap by incorporating psychological abuse into the larger doctrinal equation of child abuse and neglect treatment and prevention. First, recognizing that a primary challenge to including psychological abuse within the legal standard is the ability to determine the level of psychological harm that warrants state intervention, this Article offers a uniform definition of psychological abuse in order to expand the scope of the emergency removal standard. Second, this Article borrows from the European theory of subsidiarity to address prevention and treatment of abuse in American communities. This bold new paradigm is a prescriptive process that carefully constructs the law such that necessary interventions in a child's life are allowed to prevent further psychological damage so that victims can start the road to recovery. Ultimately, applying the principle of subsidiarity to the legal framework of the child protection system should reduce the number of children who experience psychological abuse as well as reduce the overall cycle of abuse and neglect in our country."
