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Kia Warren
Wilson
Block 5
17 February, 2016
Governmental Observation of Child Abuse

According to the federal definition from Websters dictionary, child abuse could be
known as the physical and mental injury, of a child under the age of 18 by a person who is
responsible for the child's welfare which indicates that the child's health and welfare is harmed.
Child abuse has become a growing problem not only in the US but around the world. Therefore,
the government needs to enforce and alter their laws regarding the abuse of children.
Child abuse rates have been growing rapidly and the main concern is the involvement of
the government. Nobody knows the real reasons as to why child abuse has become a bigger issue
than it was before. However there are some reasons that (Gelles) describes. For example one of
the most consistent risk factors for the seemingly constant abuse is the age of the abuser and the
difference between that, and the age of the minor being abused.
Its a popular belief that the younger the child, the easier the target. Although this may be
true there is no reason that offenders should not have to be punished for the abuse of a child, and
the ugly truth is that our government does nothing to change this problem. (Gelles) also
describes, Most protective service workers are overworked, undertrained, and underpaid. Even
though the government is hiring these workers, the things they are doing are not giving them
very good pay. Therefore one could make the assumption that the government isnt doing

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anything to enforce the actions being taken because they aren't giving enough attention to the
workers.
Based off of real life cases, the most commonly used procedure that is supposed to stop
an abusive relationship within a family is to go into the home and observe the actions being
taken. Then based on how bad the damage is, the professional will return with regular
appointments. In some cases this could be a good thing and possibly resolve the recurring
problems, but in other cases that contain larger problems this procedure wouldnt be enough to
impact the abuser enough for him/her to stop what they were doing to harm their child.
An important law that is currently enforced in all 50 states is that all cases of child abuse
must be reported. But the real question is that how will the government know if there are any
unreported cases? Dominic Lawson from The Sunday Times explains his opinion on the topic of
child abuse through an argumentative essay. He states that almost anyone could be considered a
child abuser. There is an example case stated, however other cases could be observed as well.
An everyday life example of simple child abuse could be a person seen spanking their
child because they disobeyed. Some people could take this as straight abuse, but to others it
could be just another discipline technique, therefore the spanking remains unreported. Incidents
like this one lead people to believe that the government looks like they arent doing enough, but
that they are only doing what they possibly can do.
This being said, the abuse of children in all ways needs to be closer observed because if
thought is put into the topic, everybody will have a different opinion just like they would with
anything else. There is just the different histories that different people have that could make the
smallest difference on their opinion. This being said, everybody knows and can agree that there
is a big world out there with lots of problems, but that number could be reduced with a stronger

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government. If the government closer observed and altered their laws on child abuse, the world
would be a better place and overall a safer place to grow a family.

Works Cited

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"At Penn State, Officials Flunk a Morality Test." USA Today 8 Nov. 2011: 6A. Global
Issues In Context. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Eichner, Maxine. "The New Child Abuse Panic." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 11 July 2015. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

GELLES, RICHARD J. "Family Abuse and Crime." Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice.
Ed. Joshua Dressler. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. 671-676.
Global Issues In Context. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Lantos, John. "I. Child Abuse." Bioethics. Ed. Bruce Jennings. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Farmington
Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2014. 58-62. Global Issues In Context. Web. 17 Feb.
2016.