Protecting Children from Violence

Evidence-Based Interventions

James Michael Lampinen, Kathy Sexton-Radek

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781848728417
• eBook ISBN: 9781136980039
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Education in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Providing an evidence-based understanding of the causes and consequences of violence against children, experts in the field examine the best practices used to help protect children from violence. Various types of violence are reviewed including physical and sexual abuse, (cyber-)bullying, human trafficking, online predators, abductions, and war. In addition, it reviews the various perpetrators of such violence including parents and relatives, strangers, other children, and societal institutions. The possible outcomes of such violence including physical injuries, death, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders, and damage to the social fabric of the local community are also explored.

To enhance accessibility, each contributor addresses common themes:

• Opening case studies dramatically illustrate the human cost of abuse and neglect
• Empirically driven estimates of the scope of problem to better understand who is at risk and why
• Empirically driven testing of interventions to maximize effectiveness of programs
• How current research compares to public perception and the impact on public policy
• The worldwide problem of violence against children
• Evidence-based recommendations for reducing violence against children.

The book opens with a review of the history of the problem, the methodological approaches used to study it, and current "best practice" prevention strategies. The methods used to identify peer victims are then explored. Next child eyewitness memory is examined including the most effective techniques for maximizing the retrieval of information. This is followed by the research on missing and abducted children including the effectiveness of recovery programs such as supermarket campaigns and forensic age profiles. Next how the Internet is used in the victimization of children is explored including tips to help protect children online. Public attitudes toward sex offender registration laws are then reviewed followed by vulnerabilities that include genetic, neuropsychological, temperamental, cognitive, perceptual and social factors. International perspectives on protecting children from violence and global health inequities are then addressed. The book concludes with recommendations for future research.

Contributors are noted scholars from a broad range of disciplines. As such, the book appeals to researchers and advanced students in developmental, counseling, clinical, cognitive, evolutionary, and social psychology, as well as sociology, social work, criminal justice, education, and law enforcement.

CHAPTER 1
Protecting Children from Violence

Historical Roots and Emerging Trends James Michael Lampinen and Kathy Sexton-Radek

A couple of years ago, one of us presented a talk about missing children at a local college. Following the talk, a member of the audience came up to the podium to chat. “It’s really horrible,” she said. “I don’t let my kids leave my sight for a minute. Not for a minute. Not for a single minute.” Her voice was strident. Her concern was palpable. It was concern not just for her children, but also for the world they were growing up in. It is a concern shared by many.

In the past two decades there has been growing public and professional interest in the problem of violence against children. The authors who have contributed to the present volume have spent much of their professional lives trying to understand this problem and the potential solutions to it. Violence against children is a broad and multifaceted concept. Skinnider (1998) defined violence against children as “deliberate behavior by people against children that is likely to cause physical or psychological harm.” So defined, violence against children encompasses a wide range of events and has deep historical roots that continue into the present day and are evidenced worldwide. Children are victims of physical abuse (Abrams & Portwood, Chapter 3; Galezewski, Chapter 2; Haan-Holbrook, Holbrook, & Bering, Chapter 12; McWhirter & Altshuler Bard, Chapter 13; Petretic & White-Chaisson, Chapter 10), sexual abuse (Petretic & White-Chaisson, Chapter 10; Salerno, Stevenson, Wiley, Najdowski, Bottoms, & Doran, Chapter 9), family and non-family abductions (Haan-Holbrook et al., Chapter 12; Lampinen, Arnal, Culbertson-Faegre, & Sweeney, Chapter 7), bullying and other forms of violence in schools (Galezewski, Chapter 2; Newgent, Seay, Malcolm, Keller, & Cavell, Chapter 5; Peters, Kowalski, & Malesky, Chapter 8; Sexton-Radek, Chapter 4), human trafficking (Lampinen et al., Chapter 7), Internet predators (Peters et al., Chapter 8), and a variety of other forms of violence and mistreatment (Stout, Chapter 14). Perpetrators of violence against children include parents and other relatives, strangers and acquaintances, other children, and societal institutions (e.g., Haan-Holbrook et al., Chapter 12; Lampinen et al., Chapter 7; Stout, Chapter 14). Outcomes of violence against children include serious physical injuries and death, psychological trauma including depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress, and damage to the very social fabric of communities (Galezewski, Chapter 2). Some children are more resilient to the damage caused by these types of violence (Petretic & White-Chaisson, Chapter 10; Schleser & Bodzy, Chapter 11), but all child victims are harmed in one way or another. Social scientists have attempted to address these problems by coming to an evidence-based understanding of the causes and consequences of violence against children. Increasingly, social scientists have also begun to test evidence-based solutions. These potential solutions are the focus of the present volume.

Violence Against Children has Deep Historical Roots

Violence against children is not a new phenomenon. Infanticide was common in ancient times and continues in some parts of the world right up until the present day (de Mause, 1974). Under the Roman principle of pater familias, the father had absolute power over the lives of his wife and children (Saller, 2001). When children were born, the father could legally decide that he would raise them. He could also legally decide to kill them on the spot. Or if the children broke his rules he could kill them as they got older. It was entirely up to him. In ancient Sparta, children were examined by a committee of elders (Radbill, 1987). If they were judged to be deformed, they were killed by exposure to the elements. In many societies, children were killed if it was suspected that they were illegitimate (Sarl & Biiyiikiinal, 1991). According to de Mause (1998) about half of all children were killed during ancient times. Girls were killed more often than boys (Sarl & Biiyiikiinal, 1991). In some cultures girls would be buried alive in order to do away with them (Sarl & Biiyiikiinal, 1991).

Infants were sometimes killed in order to appease the gods (de Mause, 1974). These deaths were often cruel and degrading. Children were thrown into dung heaps. They were drowned in rivers and lakes. In the city of Jericho, children were sealed into the foundations of buildings during the city’s construction. Every form of death imaginable befell them. In the ruins of ancient Carthage, archeologists uncovered a cemetery containing the bodies of more than 20,000 children killed in ritual sacrifices between 400 and 200 bc (de Mause, 1998). Parents promised the gods that they would sacrifice their children if their prayers (e.g., for a good harvest) were answered. When the parents’ prayers were answered, the parents kept their word. In Aztec society, children would be killed in rituals designed to placate a number of different deities (Schwartz-Kenny, McCauley, & Epstein, 2001). According to Schwartz-Kenny et al. (2001), in order to please the god of rain children would be drowned, in order to please the god of fire children would be set on fire, in order to please the god of hunting children would be shot with arrows, and so on. Mayans also engaged in the ritual sacrifice of children (Schwartz-Kenny et al., 2001).

The practice of infanticide was not restricted to ancient times. De Mause (1998) estimates that one-third of all infants born during the Medieval age were victims of infanticide (de Mause, 1998). The practice continued into the industrial age. Dead babies could be found in the streets of London, abandoned like pieces of trash, all the way up until the 1890s (de Mause, 1974). Sarl and Biiyiikiinal (1991) report that in 19th century England parents would sometimes kill their babies, sell the babies’ clothing, and use the proceeds of the sale to buy glasses of gin. In 1917 in Chicago, Illinois, 1000 of the 4000–5000 illegitimate children born that year just disappeared (ten Bensel, Rheinberger, & Radbill, 1997). It is no surprise then that de Mause (1974) claimed that, “The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken.” Although not widely acknowledged, evidence indicates that infanticide continues even into the present day in some countries (e.g., Murphy, 1995).

Even when children were not killed, they were often subjected to severe forms of physical abuse and neglect. Physical beatings of children were not uncommon in Ancient Rome (Wiedemann, 1989). Fathers had the legal right to excommunicate misbehaving children or to beat them. And beatings with rods were so commonplace in Roman schools that Roman poets committed it in verse (Wiedemann, 1989). However this does not present a full picture of Roman society. Many ancient Romans disapproved of the physical abuse of children. Indeed, Saller (2001) points out that there was ongoing debate in Roman society. Some ancient authorities argued that physical punishment was needed to maintain the moral fabric of society. Others argued that only slaves should be beaten, and that free children should never be subjected to physical punishment. Indeed, the physical harm of being flogged was seen as less serious than the insult to dignity that was involved in being treated like a slave.

Centuries later St. Augustine explicitly made the argument that children should be physically punished for their sins (de Mause, 1998). His argument was basically that it was better for children to suffer physical blows on Earth than for their souls to burn in Hell. In the Middle Ages, children were considered the property of their parents and were expected to follow their parents’ dictates to the letter (ten Bensel et al., 1997). If they failed to do so, severe beatings were considered to be appropriate methods of correction. One source from the Middle Ages stated, “If one beats a child until it bleeds, then it will remember – but if one beats it to death, the law applies” (cited in ten Bensel et al., 1997). In the 1600s to 1700s child labor in mills also led to the mistreatment of children. For instance, children between the ages of 4 and 10 years old working in cotton mills were punished with a device that forced their heads between their knees, causing them to bleed from the nose and ears (ten Bensel et al., 1997).

Severe maltreatment of children was commonplace well into the industrial age and of course continues to this day. Consider the story of Mrs. Etta Wheeler (Shelman & Lazoritz, 2005). In 1873, Mrs. Wheeler was visiting a tenement in New York City as a missionary for St. Lukes Mission. In one of the tenements, she found Mary Ellen Wilson, a 9-year-old girl shackled to her bed. She was physically underdeveloped, appearing to be only 5 or 6 years old. She suffered from malnutrition and showed signs of being beaten. In the tenement, Mrs. Wheeler found a leather whip that had been used on the child. Mrs. Wheeler reported the abuse to local authorities, but they told her there was nothing they could do to help the child. No law prohibited this kind of treatment of children. Finally, in desperation, Mrs. Wheeler appealed to the Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). She argued that children deserved at least the same protection that animals received. Eventually the ASPCA interceded. Three months later, Mary Ellen was removed from the tenement and placed with a foster family who took good care of her. Think of that. Children were so devalued that organizations existed to protect animals from cruelty, but no organizations existed to protect children from cruelty. Mary Ellen’s plight eventually resulted in the creation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, one of the first organizations specifically devoted to protecting children from violence. In 1895 the Society published a report documenting many of the ways children in London were mistreated. Children were hit with “boots, crockery, pans, shovels, straps, ropes, thongs, pokers, fire, and boiling water” (ten Bensel et al., 1997, p. 3). The Society also documented instances of gross neglect that left children “miserable, vermin-infested, filthy, shivering, ragged, nigh naked, pale, puny, limp feeble, faint dizzy, famished and dying” (...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• About the Editors
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• CHAPTER 1 Protecting Children from Violence
• CHAPTER 2 Exposure to Violence
• CHAPTER 3 Protecting Children in their Homes
• CHAPTER 4 Empirically-Based Violence Prevention Interventions
• CHAPTER 5 Identifying Children Potentially at Risk for Serious Maladjustment due to Peer Victimization
• CHAPTER 6 Interviewing Child Victims
• CHAPTER 7 Missing and Abducted Children
• CHAPTER 8 Looking Both Ways Before Crossing the Information Superhighway
• CHAPTER 9 Public Attitudes toward Applying Sex Offender Registration Laws to Juvenile Offenders
• CHAPTER 10 Mediating Factors in the Long-Term Outcome Following Childhood Abuse
• CHAPTER 11 Cognitive Development and Exposure to Violence in Children
• CHAPTER 12 Snakes, Spiders, Strangers
• CHAPTER 13 International Perspectives on Domestic Violence
• CHAPTER 14 Protecting Children from the Violence of Global Health Inequities
• CHAPTER 15 Protecting Children from Violence
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index