Issues in Brief
The Child Maltreatment Policy Resource Center disseminates information and products in many formats. Issues in Brief reports provide an easily accessible snapshot of critical issues in topic areas being researched and addressed by the Center.
Issues in Brief provides an orientation to a topic or issue, an outline of the main concerns, a brief review of the supporting literature, and initial recommendations, all toward goals of raising awareness and quickly orienting readers to the substance of critical child maltreatment concerns. In most cases, policy white papers and articles are available on the Center website to support a deeper and more comprehensive dive into the topic area and its related concerns.
Intrafamilial Child Torture
Historically, intrafamilial child torture (ICT – the torture of children in their own families) has been a seriously understudied area of child maltreatment practice, even though ICT has very high rates of both very serious injuries and child deaths.
In 2021, CMPRC began its work to identify and compile the best available data on ICT, including: how it has typically been defined; what it looks like in families; the most common outcomes for children; how to differentiate ICT from other forms of serious child maltreatment; and how to best protect and treat child victims.
We initially conducted research to assess professional consensus for a broad definition of ICT to promote more consistent recognition and identification. In a second study, we reviewed media reports on 104 families identified as having tortured their children to better understand the types of parental acts and child outcomes most frequently seen in ICT cases. We then compared our findings with results from five other ICT case review studies to determine whether findings were consistent across study populations, time periods, and locations. We ultimately found very consistent results across all the case review studies, particularly with regard to common parental acts in ICT and outcomes for child victims.
These two Issues in Brief documents summarize our work and our conclusions, ultimately providing child maltreatment professionals with tools to consistently recognize ICT when they see it, to accurately distinguish ICT from other forms of severe maltreatment, and to enable them to respond quickly and effectively to protect these most vulnerable child victims.
Poverty, Neglect, and Child Protection Reform
Over the past 30 years, Child Protective Services (CPS) has evolved from a highly specialized system designed to investigate and respond to child abuse and neglect to one expected to also provide social services and material supports to vulnerable families and children in poverty. This has led to mission creep in CPS agencies and service discontinuities for families struggling to meet their children’s basic needs. We explore why and how this shift occurred and offer recommendations for universal access to financial and social supports to at-risk and vulnerable families, without undermining the responsibility and capacity of CPS agencies to identify and respond to culpable child neglect.
Youth on Sex Offender Registries
Our greatly expanded Rethinking Sex Offender Registration for Youth: Evidence from Four States and Implications for Treatment, Policy, and Public Safety Issues in Brief further examines the topic using new analysis of juvenile court data from four states, together with decades of research on recidivism, treatment, and the consequences of registration. The findings challenge long-held assumptions about the public-safety value of registering youth—and provide important insights for policymakers and professionals seeking evidence-based alternatives.
Abusive Head Trauma
Abusive Head Trauma (AHT) is a severe head and/or neck injury from physical child abuse, often inflicted when an infant is shaken or thrown against a hard surface in response to continuous crying. AHT is the main cause of severe injury and death in children under the age of one from child abuse. Understanding AHT improves our ability to recognize and diagnose it, but there are multiple barriers to effective prosecution. Although preventing AHT is crucial, research on prevention has been limited. We provide resources to aid medical, legal, and social service professionals in navigating AHT and offer insights into prevention strategies.
Positive Parenting
Harmful parenting practices such as corporal punishment and psychological maltreatment have very detrimental effects on children. The philosophy of positive parenting provides an empirically supported framework for parenting practices that ensure nurturing, healthy growth and development, and nonviolent discipline. However, there is little consensus on its precise definition in either the academic or parenting practices literature, limiting our ability to make sound and consistent recommendations on parenting programs to replace harmful parenting. Our work aims to clarify the core elements of positive parenting and to develop a directory of parenting programs that are consistent with the positive parenting approach so professionals can provide families with safe and effective alternatives to ineffective and harmful parenting practices. We first investigated positive parenting in the academic literature (Brief #1), later followed by a review of the parenting practices literature (Brief #2).