sparks people’s emotions and a desire to take action
against the offending adult. In reality there are many
faces of child abuse and many more acts that leave
scars ‘‘invisible’’ to the naked eye. There is a tendency
to ignore children who display no physical or outward
signs of abuse. A large number of these children go
unrecognized, living in environments that hinder
their potential and their development as secure,
healthy individuals.
‘‘Child maltreatment’’ is a term designed to draw
attention away from the purely abuse-related acts or
injuries that children suffer. It is an all-inclusive term
to describe, in essence, when a caregiver does some-
thing or fails to do something that has harmed or
threatens to harm a child in his or her care. Child
abuse refers to acts of commission, which are done to
a child and cause harm (or the threat of harm), where-
as child neglect refers to acts of omission, acts that are
not done to or for a child, which result in harm (or
the threat of harm). In using the separate categories
of child abuse and child neglect there are further dis-
tinctions that can be made. Abuse is often categorized
into physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional
abuse. Neglect is often categorized into physical,
emotional, medical, and educational neglect. The
most commonly reported statistics are those for phys-
ical abuse, sexual abuse, and overall child neglect.
How are child abuse and neglect manifested?
Physical abuse involves harming the physical body
with such acts as kicking, punching, stabbing, or beat-
ing a child with an object; whereas physical neglect in-
volves not taking care of the needs of the physical
body with food or shelter. A child’s exposure to a
harmful environment (such as one in which drug use
is occurring) could also be construed as physical ne-
glect because of the threat of harm to the child (i.e.,
if the child were capable of getting to the drugs him-
self, or if the drugs impaired the ability of the caretak-
er to adequately supervise the child). Similarly,
emotional abuse might involve harming a child emo-
tionally by yelling, threatening the child, or calling
the child demeaning names, such as ‘‘stupid.’’ Emo-
tional neglect would be failing to provide emotional
support for a child such as happens when a caretaker
abandons a child or lacks any affection for a child. For
many children, different forms of maltreatment occur
at the same time.
While these definitions seem self-explanatory,
there is much debate about what constitutes abuse
and neglect in the United States. In other words, the
practical application of these terms is not always easy.
At the broad ends of the spectrum, there is usually lit-
tle argument about whether abuse or neglect has oc-
curred. If a parent takes an iron and intentionally
burns his two-year-old child just because the child wet
the bed at night, few would argue that this was child
abuse. Yet, if a single parent working two jobs to sup-
port the family has no time at the end of the day to
interact with his children, is this neglect? The larger
issue is that having such definitions implies that there
are certain standards for parenting or caring for chil-
dren. With such a diverse and multicultural popula-
tion, clear differences in parenting styles and
standards exist. The task of deciding where abuse and
neglect fall in that spectrum is challenging.
Another issue of debate in defining child mal-
treatment involves the societal response to child mal-
treatment. Social workers, medical professionals, and
law enforcement personnel are most often involved in
cases of child maltreatment. Each profession has its
own criteria for identifying abuse and neglect. Law
enforcement, for example, is concerned with proof of
abuse or neglect and assigning culpability; in other
words, who is to blame? The law requires respondents
to look for and present ‘‘evidence’’ of maltreatment,
when evidence may not be readily apparent. In many
sexual abuse cases, for example, a child has made
statements that indicate abuse, but the physical exam
of the child is normal. Despite what the child has dis-
closed, it is rare for these cases to be brought to trial
without physical evidence of abuse being present.Incidence of Child Maltreatment
Annual data on the occurrence of child maltreat-
ment in the United States are collected and analyzed
by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System
(NCANDS). This is a systematic, nationwide effort
that was launched to collect data from state child pro-
tective service agencies, the primary state agency re-
sponsible for responding to child maltreatment. Each
state reports the numbers of children reported for
suspected maltreatment, investigated, and subse-
quently determined to be abused or neglected.
The NCANDS report for 1998 states that the esti-
mated number of children reported for suspected
maltreatment was more than 2.8 million. The esti-
mated number of children abused or neglected in the
United States during that year was 903,000. Of this
number, more than half were victims of neglect,
nearly one-quarter were physically abused, and
approximately 12 percent were sexually abused. Ap-
proximately 25 percent of the children experienced
multiple forms of abuse. These percentages are typi-
cal of the breakdown from year to year.
The rate of abuse and neglect for 1998 was 12.9
per 1,000 children less than eighteen years of age.
This is actually a slight decrease from the previous
year. Since records have been maintained by
NCANDS, however, there has been an upward trendCHILD ABUSE 77