Child Abuse in America

Children who grow up being abused physically or mentally will develop problems and the response by children to abuse and neglect could manifest in behaviors of delinquency such as dropping out of school, drugs, alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity, prostitution, self-mutilation, stealing and other crimes and offenses. It does not matter whether you are born into a wealthy, middle class or poor family; children who are abused commit most of the same acts of delinquency.

In the Juvenile Justice system many ways have been explored and researched to determine the best means to prevent delinquency and help children who are juvenile delinquents. Programs have been developed starting in the early years as attempts to solve the juvenile delinquency problems. Houses of refuge were established as places of confinement for juvenile offenders. Later an alternative to houses of refuge, the cottage system, was created. The cottage system provided homes where children were sent to live with families who clothed, fed, provided them with supervision and had them work to teach discipline and responsibility. Later, special a Juvenile Court system was established around the country. Programs such as Upward Bound, Technical Schools (Automotive mechanic) counseling sessions, after school programs and government agencies were developed to find answers to and stop juvenile delinquency. After many years of seeking solutions; nothing is working as it should.

The reason for the lack of sufficient changes in juvenile delinquency is that the problems that leads to juvenile delinquency starts in the home and there has not been enough attention paid to the family dynamics which causes delinquency. Parents are the first relationship chi...

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...roblems will escalate. Children need parents with whom they can communicate. In the textbook Juvenile Delinquency and Justice, Ronald J. Berger and Paul D. Gregory, they wrote, “The family is a major arena for social interaction, personal growth, and social and emotional maturation.” Parents must take their place in the lives of children and must be held to a higher standard of parenting, if our children are to be saved. Professionals charged with the job of helping our children to heal must have a heart concern for children and not a simply a medical concern. They should care about the child as a human and desire the see him develop into a thriving person and not perform a few acts of service and turn their backs. We as a society should realize that our children do not need short term therapeutic visits, but long term and infinite love, care and concern.