How should we deal with child abuse?
Is child abuse a matter of children's rights, or criminal prosecution?
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, May, 1997

Late in the 1996 session of the Kentucky General Assembly, Gov. Paul Patton introduced a bill to deal with the problem of child abuse. The bill was defeated because of questions about its potentially anti-family language. A similar bill could be introduced as early as the May special session on higher education.

One part of the bill adds language making it easier to take drug and alcohol abuse into account in abuse situations.  But it also places keeping families together lower on the list of priorities in child abuse cases. The governor’s office admits that this will have no practical affect, but has only a philosophical meaning. Unfortunately it is a philosophical meaning some would consider anti-family.

The bill also contains a vague definition of "emotional abuse.” Under the language of the law, it would be up to whichever psychologist happens to be involved in the case, many of whom will have different views on what constitutes emotional abuse and no clear guidelines to go by.

One of the questions lawmakers will have to deal with is whether the child abuse problem is being caused by a lack of good laws or a lack of good enforcement of existing laws. Is the primary problem a need for more laws or a need to make sure the are being enforced properly?

Many of the child abuse enforcement problems highlighted in the press, for example, are the result of procedures that weren't properly followed. Some lawmakers will probably be asking how making more laws is going to solve that problem.

In the Lexington Herald-Leader's series on child sexual abuse several years ago, "Twice Abused," the vast majority of stories dealt with the problem of abusers who were already identified and (in many cases) convicted but who were either not punished at all or got light sentences.

In other words, the problem was not that the laws weren't letting us get the children out of abusive homes, but that the abusers were getting away with little or no punishment, and in many cases sent back into the same homes to abuse the same children.

There are two very different approaches to the problem of child abuse: one which the governor is taking, and the more conservative approach.

Under the governor’s approach, the problem of child abuse is a sociological problem and social service agencies are best suited to deal with it. Abused children have had their rights violated and the abusers should be rehabilitated. The solution is to make it easier to take children out of the home and place them in state care, namely foster homes.

Under the conservative approach, however, the problem of child abuse is a criminal problem and the criminal justice system is best suited to deal with it. Abused children are the victims of a violent crime and the abusers should be punished. The solution is to make it easier to take abusers out of the home and place them in state care, namely jails.

The governor’s approach focuses on relocating the child. A more conservative approach would focus on ways to lock up the abuser for a longer period of time.
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst