Friday 18 May 2012
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Thursday May 17, 2012
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- 25 Horrible Statistics About The U.S. Economy During Obama's Presidency
- How Obama Recycled a Lie about Iran
- Secret Service Prostitute Scandal: 12th Military Member Implicated
- Carter warns against war with Iran
- AP Analysis: Half Of Recent College Grads Are Jobless Or Underemployed
- Google admits to lobbying on CISPA, but won’t say which way
- Bahrain Formula 1 Cartoons
- Two women say were raped, punished at U.S. military academies
- US Army investigated soldiers over suspected drug abuse in Afghanistan, data show
- Tolerance of whom?
Statistics alone cannot convey the horror of physical assaults upon children in our society.
According to Violence, the extreme of child abuse is murder. In 1975 alone, 166 infants less than a year old were murdered, 327 children between the ages of one and four were murdered, 142 children between the ages of five and nine were murdered, and 205 children between the ages of ten and fourteen were murdered. These numbers, taken from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for that year, are at best an underestimate of the actual incidence of infant and child murder, since so many deaths reported as accidental may in fact result from intentional injury. Accidental death rates for these same age groups range from 10 to 27 times the murder rates. One can assume that authorities declare a child's death to be murder only under the most extreme and blatant of circumstances.
Statistics alone cannot convey the horror of physical assaults upon children in our society. The Uniform Crime Reports describe the various means by which adults murder their infants and children: shooting, stabbing, bludgeoning, burning, poisoning, strangling, suffocating, and using explosives.
Philip J. Resnick states in his article "Child Murder by Parents: A Psychiatric Review of Filicide" (American Journal of Psychiatry, 1969): "Head trauma, strangulation and drowning were the most frequent methods of filicide (the killing of a person's own child). Fathers tended to use more active methods, such as striking, squeezing or stabbing; mothers more often drowned, suffocated or gassed their victims. Unusual methods included putting sulfuric acid in a nursing bottle, and biting a child to death. One father put his son on a drill press and drilled a hole through the hart."
Perhaps the less fortunate children are those who do not die as a result of abuse -- those who must live in pain and fear throughout childhood. According to the most recent national survey on child abuse, conducted in 1975 by Dr. Richard Gelles, Dr. Murray Straus and Dr. Suzanne Steinmetz, more than 3 million children in 1975 had been kicked, hit or punched at some time in their short lives by their parents. In the year of the study, 460,000 to 750,000 children were beaten to the point of injury by their parents. More dramatically, 46,000 were threatened or injured by their parents with a gun or knife.
The number of children abused in the United States is increasing every year. Dr. Trude Lash and Dr. Heidi Sigal found in their study of child abuse in New York City that the incidence of child abuse increased 1026 percent between 1964 and 1974. An unknown portion of this increase can be attributed to a growing willingness to report child abuse. But it is apparent that a substantial amount of this increase must indicate a higher incidence of abuse. The Office of Child Development of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare stated: "An epidemic of child abuse is occurring in this country."
The problem of child abuse is not just a problem of certain adults assaulting certain children, bur rather it is deeply rooted in the fabric of our entire society. Why do husbands beat their wives? Why do so many of us support capital punishment? Why do we find so much entertainment and enjoyment in films and television programs that depict physical violence? The answer is that we are a physically violent society and that child abuse represents merely one aspect of that violence.
In testimony, one woman said she had witnessed Canfield spanking the infant almost every day. The attorney noted that his client had no previous criminal record and entered a plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Canfield was sentenced to a five-year prison term, which was suspended, and was placed on three years' probation. Judge Jennings told Canfield, who had remained silent throughout the hearing: "On one hand, the life of an innocent child has been taken. On the other hand, we have you -- a basically good and decent person."
It's beyond all rational explanation how the killing of this infant could be considered to be an accident and that the person who killed this 12-week-old baby could be considered "a basically good and decent person."
But the fact is our society tolerates and supports physical violence against children while punishing the same type of physical violence if an adult is the victim. The idea that beating children is good for them is a long-standing theory not only in our society, but in many others. The attitude that physical pain and punishment are necessary to produce discipline and to build strong moral character dates back to biblical times and finds its religious roots in the Old Testament: "Withhold not correction from a child.... Thou shalt beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell" (Proverbs 23:13-14).
In a discussion with me, Alvar Nelson, professor of criminal law at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), pointed out that 100 years ago in Sweden fathers once a week would beat their wives and children with a rod to drive out sin and moral corruption from their bodies. In 1968 the Swedish Parliament unanimously passed a law deeming it a criminal offense for a parent to strike a child. What happened in Swedish culture over the years to make such humane legislation possible? Will America have to wait 100 years for similar legislation?
The insistence of American adults that physical punishment of children is good for them can best be seen in the case of Maryland. When that state's department of education prohibited all forms of physical punishment of children in the school system, 19 of the state's 24 counties passed legislation exempting them from the directive. Now only two states -- Massachusetts and New Jersey -- prohibit the corporal punishment of children in their schools. (New York City schools also ban corporal punishment.) Judging by our school systems, we certainly believe in beating children.
Statistics alone cannot convey the horror of physical assaults upon children in our society. The Uniform Crime Reports describe the various means by which adults murder their infants and children: shooting, stabbing, bludgeoning, burning, poisoning, strangling, suffocating, and using explosives.
A cigarette lighter in the hands of a man who'd been abused as a child becomes a weapon of torture against his own child. Will these symptoms of lack of physical affection and sexual repression carry over to the next generation? The problem is breaking the cycle of abuse that turns victims into perpetrators.
Philip J. Resnick states in his article "Child Murder by Parents: A Psychiatric Review of Filicide" (American Journal of Psychiatry, 1969): "Head trauma, strangulation and drowning were the most frequent methods of filicide (the killing of a person's own child). Fathers tended to use more active methods, such as striking, squeezing or stabbing; mothers more often drowned, suffocated or gassed their victims. Unusual methods included putting sulfuric acid in a nursing bottle, and biting a child to death. One father put his son on a drill press and drilled a hole through the hart."
Perhaps the less fortunate children are those who do not die as a result of abuse -- those who must live in pain and fear throughout childhood. According to the most recent national survey on child abuse, conducted in 1975 by Dr. Richard Gelles, Dr. Murray Straus and Dr. Suzanne Steinmetz, more than 3 million children in 1975 had been kicked, hit or punched at some time in their short lives by their parents. In the year of the study, 460,000 to 750,000 children were beaten to the point of injury by their parents. More dramatically, 46,000 were threatened or injured by their parents with a gun or knife.
The number of children abused in the United States is increasing every year. Dr. Trude Lash and Dr. Heidi Sigal found in their study of child abuse in New York City that the incidence of child abuse increased 1026 percent between 1964 and 1974. An unknown portion of this increase can be attributed to a growing willingness to report child abuse. But it is apparent that a substantial amount of this increase must indicate a higher incidence of abuse. The Office of Child Development of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare stated: "An epidemic of child abuse is occurring in this country."
The problem of child abuse is not just a problem of certain adults assaulting certain children, bur rather it is deeply rooted in the fabric of our entire society. Why do husbands beat their wives? Why do so many of us support capital punishment? Why do we find so much entertainment and enjoyment in films and television programs that depict physical violence? The answer is that we are a physically violent society and that child abuse represents merely one aspect of that violence.
Is child abuse a crime? This child's identity is protected because the courts may return the girl to her father, who beat her so severely she suffered brain damage.
The extent to which our society and our judical system accept the right of adults to physically assault children is reflected in a case reported by Athelia Knight in the Washington Post on November 6, 1976. Renee Ann Canfield, the 12-week-old stepdaughter of Elmer Canfield, died in April of 1976 as the result of injuries she suffered when Canfield held her by her ankles and spanked her. The infant's crying had interrupted his favorite television show, Adam-12. At a hearing before Chief Circuit Judge Barnard F. Jennings, Canfield's attorney said that the defendant, a 35-year-old unemployed cook from Fairfax, Virginia, "didn't realize that the baby's head hit the floor" during the spanking and that Canfield regretted the incident.In testimony, one woman said she had witnessed Canfield spanking the infant almost every day. The attorney noted that his client had no previous criminal record and entered a plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Canfield was sentenced to a five-year prison term, which was suspended, and was placed on three years' probation. Judge Jennings told Canfield, who had remained silent throughout the hearing: "On one hand, the life of an innocent child has been taken. On the other hand, we have you -- a basically good and decent person."
It's beyond all rational explanation how the killing of this infant could be considered to be an accident and that the person who killed this 12-week-old baby could be considered "a basically good and decent person."
But the fact is our society tolerates and supports physical violence against children while punishing the same type of physical violence if an adult is the victim. The idea that beating children is good for them is a long-standing theory not only in our society, but in many others. The attitude that physical pain and punishment are necessary to produce discipline and to build strong moral character dates back to biblical times and finds its religious roots in the Old Testament: "Withhold not correction from a child.... Thou shalt beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell" (Proverbs 23:13-14).
In a discussion with me, Alvar Nelson, professor of criminal law at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), pointed out that 100 years ago in Sweden fathers once a week would beat their wives and children with a rod to drive out sin and moral corruption from their bodies. In 1968 the Swedish Parliament unanimously passed a law deeming it a criminal offense for a parent to strike a child. What happened in Swedish culture over the years to make such humane legislation possible? Will America have to wait 100 years for similar legislation?
The insistence of American adults that physical punishment of children is good for them can best be seen in the case of Maryland. When that state's department of education prohibited all forms of physical punishment of children in the school system, 19 of the state's 24 counties passed legislation exempting them from the directive. Now only two states -- Massachusetts and New Jersey -- prohibit the corporal punishment of children in their schools. (New York City schools also ban corporal punishment.) Judging by our school systems, we certainly believe in beating children.
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