Statute: § 40-11-2

Standard

Harmed or threatened with harm

Inflicts or allows to be inflicted

Creates or allows to be created

Commits or allows to be committed

Exemption

Not addressed in statutes reviewed

Categories of Maltreatment Defined in Statute

Physical abuse

Neglect

Sexual abuse

Sexual exploitation

Emotional/mental injury

Abandonment

Categories of Maltreatment Not Defined in Statute

Full Text of Statute

DEFINITIONS

R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-11-2 (Lexis, WESTLAW through End of 2000 Reg. Sess.)

'Abused and/or neglected child' means a child whose physical or mental health or welfare is harmed or threatened with harm when his or her parent or other person responsible for his or her welfare:

Inflicts, or allows to be inflicted upon the child physical or mental injury, including excessive corporal punishment; or

Creates or allows to be created a substantial
risk of physical or mental injury to the child,
including excessive corporal punishment; or

Commits or allows to be committed, against the
child, an act of sexual abuse; or

Fails to supply the child with adequate food,
clothing, shelter, or medical care, though
financially able to do so or offered financial or
other reasonable means to do so; or

Fails to provide the child with a minimum degree
of care or proper supervision or guardianship
because of his or her unwillingness or inability
to do so by situations or conditions such as, but
not limited to, social problems, mental
incompetency, or the use of a drug, drugs, or
alcohol to the extent that the parent or other
person responsible for the child's welfare loses
his or her ability or is unwilling to properly
care for the child; or

Abandons or deserts the child; or

Sexually exploits the child in that the person
allows, permits or encourages the child to engage
in prostitution as defined by the statutes; or

Sexually exploits the child in that the person
allows, permits, encourages or engages in the
obscene or pornographic photographing, filming or
depiction of the child in a setting which taken
as a whole suggests to the average person that
the child is about to engage in or has engaged
in, any sexual act, or which depicts any such
child under 18 years of age, performing sodomy,
oral copulation, sexual intercourse,
masturbation, or bestiality; or

Commits or allows to be committed any sexual
offense against the child as such sexual offenses
are defined by statute; or

Commits or allows to be committed against any
child an act involving sexual penetration or
sexual contact if the child is under 15 years of
age; or if the child is 15 years or older, and
(1) force or coercion is used by the perpetrator,
or (2) the perpetrator knows or has reason to
know that the victim is a severely impaired
person, or physically helpless.

'Child' means a person under the age of 18.

'Mental injury' includes a state of substantially diminished psychological or intellectual functioning in relation to, but not limited to, such factors as: failure to thrive;
ability to think or reason; control of aggressive
or self-destructive impulses; acting-out or
misbehavior, including incorrigibility,
ungovernability, or habitual truancy; provided,
however, that the injury must be clearly
attributable to the unwillingness or inability of
the parent or other person responsible for the
child's welfare to exercise a minimum degree of
care toward the child.

'Person responsible for child's welfare' means the child's parent, guardian, foster parent, an employee of a public or private residential home or facility, or any staff person providing out-of-home care (out-of-home care means child day care to include family day care, group day care, and center-based day care).