This article delves into the critical subject of the rights of child victims in the criminal justice process, offering an insightful exploration of historical contexts, legislative frameworks, protective mechanisms, challenges, and emerging trends. Beginning with an overview of the historical treatment of child victims, the article traces key turning points that have shaped the recognition
The Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System (UCCES) provides a method of gathering and organizing information during child custody evaluations. It proposes to standardize the process for evaluations as a remedy for the unsystematic methods and procedures that are frequently employed in these cases. Although it offers a specific process for structuring data collection, it does
Psychologists are often asked to evaluate and to provide testimony about parental capacity. The Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory, a measure originally designed to screen parents for child physical abuse risk, is frequently used as a measure of general parental capacity. The CAP Inventory is a 160-item, forced-choice (agree/disagree) self-report questionnaire. It contains a 77-item
Child custody evaluation (also known as evaluation of parental responsibility) refers to the use of the legal system to resolve questions of the distribution of decision-making responsibility and time with children, often but not always in the context of marital dissolution. This process exists to resolve disputes between two or more adults who have an
Child maltreatment extends across class, culture, ethnicity, and nationality. In the United States alone, upward of 3 million cases of child abuse are reported annually, and more than 1,000 children die each year as a result of abuse. However, these numbers are likely underestimates of the scope of the problem because, as most experts agree
Although definitions can vary across legal, clinical, and research contexts, child sexual abuse is commonly defined as sexual acts between a youth and an older person (e.g., by 5 years or more) in which the dominance of the older person is used to exploit or coerce the youth. Behaviors may include noncontact (e.g., exposure) and
The child care market was largely irrelevant to professional careers during the historical period when most professionals were White men with wives in the home performing unpaid work. Beginning in the 1960s, the large-scale entry of women into higher education and professional labor markets changed this situation. That change occurred in large measure because women
For the public, prosecution of child abuse is marked more by notoriety than knowledge. Ever since child abuse began to be prosecuted with some frequency in the 1980s, the news media have lavished enormous attention on several high profile cases like the McMartin Preschool trial (the longest trial in U.S. history), the Louise Woodward trial
So much attention has been given by researchers and professionals to the critical link between child abuse and juvenile delinquency that most would assume that child abuse causes later juvenile delinquency and wonder why there is still a discussion of the issue. Early research suggested that this was a simple relationship. Widom (1989) and Smith
Child abuse and neglect continues to be a major concern in the United States. Reports of child maltreatment have increased dramatically over the last decades of the twentieth century, in part because of better reporting. During 2003, 2.9 million referrals regarding over 5 million children were made to child protective services. Approximately 30 percent of