What is Child Maltreatment?

Child abuse and neglect are defined in both Federal and State legislation. Federal legislation provides a foundation for States by identifying a minimum set of acts or behaviors that define physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse.

How is Child Maltreatment Defined by Law?

The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), (42 U.S.C.A 5106g), as amended, provides the following definitions.

Child is a person who has not attained the lesser of:

The age of 18; or
Except in cases of sexual abuse, the age specified by the child protection law of the State in which the child resides.

Child abuse and neglect is, at a minimum:

Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or
An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.

Sexual abuse is:

The employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of any child to engage in, or assist any other person to engage in, any sexually explicit conduct or simulation of such conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct; or
The rape, and in cases of caretaker or inter-familial relationships, statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, or other form of sexual exploitation of children, or incest with children.

CAPTA defines withholding of medically indicated treatment as the failure to respond to the infant's life threatening conditions by providing treatment (including appropriate nutrition, hydration, and medication) that in the treating physician's or physicians' reasonable medical judgment, will be most likely to be effective in ameliorating or correcting all such conditions.

But, the term withholding of medically indicated treatment does not include the failure to provide treatment (other than appropriate nutrition, hydration, and medication) to an infant when, in the treating physician's or physicians' reasonable medical judgment:

The infant is chronically and irreversibly comatose
The provision of such treatment would
- Merely prolong dying
- Not be effective in ameliorating or correcting all of the infant's life-threatening conditions
- Otherwise be futile in terms of the survival of the infant; or
The provision of such treatment would be virtually futile in terms of the survival of the infant and the treatment itself under such circumstances would be inhumane.

Each State is responsible for providing its own definitions of child abuse and neglect within the civil and criminal codes. Civil statutes, describe the circumstances and conditions that obligate mandated reporters to report known or suspected cases of abuse, and they provide definitions necessary for juvenile/family courts determination of child dependency. Criminal statutes specify the forms of maltreatment that are criminally punishable. (The State Statutes Elements from the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the American Prosecutors Research Institute summarize more than 40 civil and criminal State statutes in seven topic areas pertaining to child maltreatment.)

What Are the Main Types of Maltreatment?

There are four major types of maltreatment: physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse. While State definitions may vary, operational definitions include the following:

Physical Abuse is characterized by the infliction of physical injury as a result of punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning, shaking or otherwise harming a child. The parent or caretaker may not have intended to hurt the child; rather, the injury may have resulted from over-discipline or physical punishment.

Child Neglect is characterized by failure to provide for the child's basic needs. Neglect can be physical, educational, or emotional. Physical neglect includes refusal of, or delay in, seeking health care; abandonment; expulsion from the home or refusal to allow a runaway to return home; and inadequate supervision. Educational neglect includes the allowance of chronic truancy, failure to enroll a child of mandatory school age in school, and failure to attend to a special educational need. Emotional neglect includes such actions as marked inattention to the child's needs for affection; refusal of or failure to provide needed psychological care; spouse abuse in the child's presence; and permission of drug or alcohol use by the child. The assessment of child neglect requires consideration of cultural values and standards of care as well as recognition that the failure to provide the necessities of life may be related to poverty.

Sexual Abuse includes fondling a child's genitals, intercourse, incest, rape, sodomy, exhibitionism, and commercial exploitation through prostitution or the production of pornographic materials. Many experts believe that sexual abuse is the most under-reported form of child maltreatment because of the secrecy or "conspiracy of silence" that so often characterizes these cases.

Emotional Abuse (psychological/verbal abuse/mental injury) includes acts or omissions by the parents or other caregivers that have caused, or could cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders. In some cases of emotional abuse, the acts of parents or other caregivers alone, without any harm evident in the child's behavior or condition, are sufficient to warrant child protective services (CPS) intervention. For example, the parents/caregivers may use extreme or bizarre forms of punishment, such as confinement of a child in a dark closet. Less severe acts, such as habitual scapegoating, belittling, or rejecting treatment, are often difficult to prove and, therefore, CPS may not be able to intervene without evidence of harm to the child.

Although any of the forms of child maltreatment may be found separately, they often occur in combination. Emotional abuse is almost always present when other forms are identified. For more information, contact the Clearinghouse.