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Some Facts and Fancies About Child Abuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2024

Peter Boss
Peter Boss*
Affiliation:
Monash University
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The main purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the phenomenon of child abuse. It is intended to present some of the main facts and findings insofar as they have emerged in clinical and empirical work as well as some of the speculations which are enmeshed in such work. Additionally it is the intention to place the topic into a wider socio-cultural context which must inevitably involve some comment on political and economic factors. Perhaps it should be added that having embarked on such a global approach this paper cannot do more than act as an introduction to the topic of child abuse. This however may serve as a means by which interest is aroused in it and concern shared over a phenomenon which is an embarrassment to any civilised society. This concern has been rekindled over the past decade. The use of the word “rekindled” is deliberate since the literature of the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. has, to my knowledge, not really ceased to cover this topic since the great debates and activities surrounding the formation of societies for the protection of children in both countries toward the close of the last century. More recently however, clinicians, particularly in America, pointed the way to a revival of concern in the causation of non-accidental injuries to young children and equally important, have generated an interest in prevention and generally management of the problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Children Australia , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 11 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

References

1. See for instance: American Humane Association, Children's Division, In the Interest of Children: A Century of Progress Denver, Colo., 1966 Google Scholar. Housden, L., Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Jonathan Cape, 1955 Google Scholar. Morton, A. and Allen, A., This is Your Child, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961 Google Scholar. Platt, Anthony, The Child Savers — The Invention of Delinquency, University of Chicago Press, 1969 Google Scholar.

2. Kempe, C. Henry et al, “The Battered-Child Syndrome”, Journal of the American Medical Association 181, July 1962, pp. 17–24 Google Scholar.

3. Foreman, Lynne, Children or Families? Australian Social Welfare Commission, 1975, pp. 40–41 Google Scholar.

4. Quoted in Gil, D., Violence Against Children — Physical Child Abuse in the United States, Harvard U.P., Cambridge, Mass., 1970, p. 43 Google Scholar.

5. Report of the Community Welfare Advisory Committee Enquiry into Non-Accidental Physical Injury to Children in South Australia, 1976, pp. 20–25 Google Scholar.

6. Gelles, R.J., “Child Abuse as Psychopathology: A Sociological Critique and Reformulation”, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 43(4), July 1973, pp. 611–621 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. This is an important critique which should be read by anyone with a serious research, academic, or professionally relevant practice interest in child abuse.

7. See e.g. Skinner, Angela E. and Castle, R.L., 78 Battered Children — A Retrospective Study, NSPCC, 1969, p. 3, quoting evidence from published workGoogle Scholar.

8. Gelles, op.cit. of 19 traits listed by the authors studies, there was agreement by two or more authors on only four traits. Each remaining trait was mentioned by only a single author. Gelles makes particular reference to seven separate studies by different authors.

9. Light, R.J., “Abused and Neglected Children in America: A Study of Alternative Policies”, Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 43, No. 4, Nov. 1973, pp. 556–598 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. D.Gil, op.cit.

11. R.J. Light, op.cit., pp. 563-567.

12. Community Welfare Advisory Committee, S.A. op.cit. pp. 219.

13. Birrell, J., “Saving the Bashed Baby”, The Age, 4.2.1976 Google Scholar.

14. R.J. Light, op.cit. pp. 567-571.

15. See e.g.: Jones, Carolyn, “Predictive and Preventive Studies” in First Australian National Conference: The Battered Child, Perth, 1975, Proceedings pp. 19–25 Google Scholar; this refers to the work of a NSPCC unit in London. Dr. Kempe's treatment work includes inter alia “crisis nurseries” which are places where any mother, any time of day or night, seven days a week, can bring a child on her own authority … the child can stay there one hour, one week, one year; It also uses mother surrogates, “men and women whom we got to use through the Foster Grandparent Program … we have 25 foster grandmothers in our ward who do nothing but rock one child each … They were not only holding one baby on one arm but they were holding this battering mother virtually on the other. They began to make house calls …” see Kempe, C. Henry, “A Practical Approach to the Protection of the Abused Child and Rehabilitation of the Abusing Parent”, Pediatrics, Vol. 51, No. 4, Part II, April 1973, pp 3–12 Google Scholar. Another report, which however appears to use counselling only, i.e. the team does not appear to move outside the clinic office to give help, can be found in: Holmes, Sally A., Barnhard, Carol, Cantoni, Lucile, and Reymer, Eva: “Working with the Parent in Child Abuse Cases”, Social Casework, Jan. 1975, pp 3–12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Herbert, D. Lorens and Rako, Jules, “A Community Approach to the Prevention of Child Abuse”, Child Welfare, Vol. LIV. No. 2, February 1975, pp. 83–87 Google Scholar.

17. Project Care, Children, Parents and Community, Australian Government, Social Welfare Commission, 1974 Google Scholar.

18. Consultative Council — Pre-School Child Development in Victoria, Melbourne, 1973 Google Scholar.

19. Commission of Inquiry into Poverty — Poverty in Australia, (Henderson Report), AGPS, 1975, Ch. 12Google Scholar.

20. Burt, M.R. and Balyeat, R., “A New System for Improving the Care of Neglected and Abused Children”, Child Welfare (USA), Vol. LIII, 3rd March, 1974 Google Scholar.

21. Report of the Community Welfare Advisory Committee, op.cit. pp. 29-32Google Scholar.