Senseless Tragedy: Child Abuse and its Effects on Society

Much of our society’s concern today revolves around children, their education, upbringing and development. This concern is placed on children because it is well known that what children learn in childhood can affect them for the rest of their lives. Child abuse is one of these things. Child abuse has lasting effects on children that can sometimes lead into their adult years. Parents often believe that the way they were treated as children is ‘fine’, or that because ‘they turned out all right’ that hitting or otherwise abusing a child is fine and will not have any permanent effects on the child. This essay is meant to explore the correlation between childhood abuse and the rate of teenage and adult criminality among victims as well as inform about what child abuse actually is.

Child abuse is “the bad treatment of a child under the age of 18 by a parent, caretaker, someone living in their home, or someone who works around the children… Child abuse is any action (or lack of) which dangers or impairs a child’s physical, mental, or emotional health or development” (International Child Abuse Network, 2006). Child abuse can have many different faces, but most of these can be summed into a few umbrella terms: physical abuse can be hitting, shaking, strangulation, among other things; emotional abuse can be constant disapproval, belittling or teasing; sexual abuse can be fondling, intercourse, the showing of private parts, incest, etc; and neglect is the deprivation of the basic necessities of life (food, shelter, water, emotional and physical security, and medical care) (ICAN, 2006). Children are often abused in many different ways, rather than the abuser sticking to just one method (Baker, 2003). For example, a physically abused child can be emotionally or sexually abused as well.

Recognizing child abuse can often be a difficult task for caregivers, teachers and physicians. Some common traits among abused children are: unexplained bruises or other marks such as burns or cuts, fractures, inappropriate sexual knowledge, sexually transmitted diseases, anxiety, poor academic performance, stress, suicidal conduct, loss of self-esteem, sleep disturbances, headaches and stomachaches, running away from home, being underweight, emotional neediness, language developmental difficulties, compulsive eating, inability to concentrate, bald patches, self-destructive tendencies, aggression towards others, overreacting to criticism, neurotic behavior (hair twisting, rocking back and forth, self-mutilation), being overly affectionate (Baker, 2003). These are just a small fraction of symptoms that children who are abused can have, and sometimes these symptoms can appear in children who are not abused. It is also possible that a child who is abused to not show any symptoms of abuse and hide what is happening from everyone (Baker, 2003).

Child abuse, as well as having effects that start immediately, like the ones mentioned above, has some very long lasting effects. Herbert Ward may have put it best when he said “Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime” (Lafrinere, 2006). Some of these effects begin in childhood and last the rest of their lives, and other are latent until

much later, when they become adults. Effects that can begin while the victims are still children that are particularly conducive to criminal behavior are: academic difficulties, aggressive behavior, alcohol/drug abuse, compulsive sexual behaviors, dangerous risk-taking, oppositionality, running away, stealing, lying, disassociative states, substance abuse, and truancy. (Newton, 2001) According to Abraham Maslow, the main reason that children misbehave is that they feel threatened in their needs for safety, love, belongingness and self-esteem (1970, pp.121-122). So if, because of the behaviors mentioned earlier, the school system decides to suspend or expel them according to their zero-tolerance policy—a law passed in 2000 by Mike Harris’ government gives teachers and principals the power to suspend or expel the student for a variety of infractions and call for a mandatory expulsion after a number of infractions (CBC, 2005)—they may feel like the authority figures that they are supposed to trust are abandoning them and therefore will react by misbehaving further, creating a vicious cycle.

In the same way, criminality among abuse sufferers is well documented. According to a 1992 study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), childhood abuse increased the likeliness of arrest as a juvenile by 53 percent, as an adult by 38 percent, and for a violent crime by 38 percent. It increased the likelihood of arrest for females by 77 percent. A related 1995 study by the same group indicated that victims of childhood abuse were 28 times more likely than a control group of non-abused children to be arrested for prostitution as an adult (NECF, 2000). These terrifying statistics state that children are double as likely to engage in criminal behavior if they are abused, something that does not bode well for their future relationships.

In other words, the serial killer Edmund Kemper, who had one of the most brutal upbringings imaginable, may have turned out to be the local postman or school teacher, rather than killing, raping and dismembering bodies, as well as engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism on eight women, including his own mother, the woman who had tortured him from an early age (Schechter, 2004). His mother used to lock him in the basement (several reasons were given for this behavior depending on the interviewer, including it being to “toughen him up” or because his mother was afraid he would rape his sisters) (Ramsland, 2005). He was the product of a broken and abusive home (Fisher, 2000). According to Harold Schecter, author of The Serial Killer Files, “Ed Kemper’s mother ridiculed him relentlessly during his youth, mocking his physical appearance and telling him that no woman would ever love him” (p. 253). This sort of prolonged abusive behavior undoubtedly had an effect on this man’s psyche, molding him into a cold and methodical killer so jaded and unfeeling that he is even able to suggest, when asked what a suitable punishment for his crimes should be, death by torture (Ramsland, 2005). In the similar, yet fictional movie, Natural Born Killers (1994); Mickey and Mallory Knox both have abusive parents and become serial killers. In fact, Mickey even helps Mallory murder her abusive father and enabling mother. (Chapman & Leahy, 2006) Although this story is fictional, and an extreme example of what can happen to children who are abused and grow up without any guidance or proper role models, this is a story that is being repeated over and over again in the homes of our nation, and every other nation around the world.

At any rate, child abuse that children are forced to suffer is unacceptable. Any level of child abuse is too much. We must fight to ensure that the children of the world are safe from predators and bad parents, and especially parents who do not know any better. The children often cannot or do not have the voices to speak up or understand that the things that are happening to them are not their faults, and because of this, severe behavior, such as criminality, occurs. If every child that is abused represents a tragedy, the numbers of children—these being only the reported cases, the numbers could be far higher— being abused point to an enormous social problem. For example, in America, 3.1 million children are abused or neglected each year, there are 90,000 incidents of child sexual abuse reported each year, and most disturbingly of all, 2,000 of these children will die because of this abuse and neglect. (TurningPoint, 1998) Parents cannot afford to have the mentality that if it was all right for them, it is all right for the children, because many times, it is not.

There are many things we can do to ensure that child abuse is eradicated. First of all, every accusation of child abuse needs to be taken seriously, and adults need to be vigilant in watching for signs of child abuse. Too often children are not taken seriously in their accusations because the adults are in shock that someone could be so despicable to harm a child in much horrible ways, or they just “don’t seem like that sort of person”. Child abuse is much more common than reported (Baker, 2003) and therefore needs to be taken seriously. Another way we can discourage abusers is to offer courses, free of charge to new parents wanting to learn how to care for their child properly. This may seem like an expensive undertaking, but comparatively speaking, the costs that these children who turn to criminal behavior in their later years in judicial, incarceration, and reparative costs dwarf the costs of opening healthy parenting clinics. Equally important are better laws protecting children from child abuse. As the laws stand currently, it is well documented that people who engage in child pornography trafficking as well as child abuse receive lenient sentences. For example, a child molester in New Hampshire received six months in jail (with credit for six months already served) because he is dying of cancer and the judge is quoted as saying that the primary person that he was thinking of in giving this sentence was the victim, so that she wouldn’t have the guilt of him dying in jail. The child molester’s family also states that they just want him to die at home and that his release would save the taxpayers money in chemotherapy. What the judge fails to notice is that the abuser is the victim’s stepfather. Their excuse for this lenient punishment is that “he will be on probation for life, no matter how long he lives”. The really disgusting fact is that even if he had been punished to the full extent of the law, he would have received only 3 to 6 years in prison. (Associated Press, 2006) Foster children need protection as well, for example, the case of Jeffrey Baldwin, a child who ended up dying as a result of his grandparents’ neglect. Had a simple screening been done, it would’ve been revealed (and saved his life) that his adoptive parents had another child die in their care and that they both had been convicted of child abuse. Children’s Aid Societies need to do more thorough checks about the families they allow to adopt their children as well as checking up on them often enough to make sure nothing continues to happen.

In conclusion, child abuse is a terrible thing that affects all aspects of society, from the children to the adults they become. It is a cross to bear that the victims have with them for their whole life, and many, although they could have been perfectly happy, healthy individuals, end up becoming criminals and wasting their lives away because of another person’s problems. However, there is still hope as long as the issue is taken seriously and the laws protecting the children are changed so that child abusers are discouraged from abusing their (or other) children and the children themselves are protected.

A/N: Plagiarism is STRICTLY forbidden, and for this reason, the Works Cited page of this essay has been removed.

This essay is for educational purposes only.