three elements that distinguishes physical abuse from corporal punishment

Disclaimer. Disentangling Disability From Clinical Significance. Code Ann. For a useful summary of the long-standing collaboration and clash between social workers and the law in this area, see Giovannoni & Becerra. This knowledge, and the corresponding legal judgment of whether an assault constitutes physical abuse, has evolved over time. Cultural Normativeness as a Moderator. Thus, empirical studies demonstrate that corporal punishment can be helpful, unimportant, or harmful to the childs development, depending on the meaning ascribed by the child. Deater-Deckard Kirby, et al. To these ends, this article contributes to the literature on the subject of broad and vague abuse definitions in law and the social sciences by proposing a legislative solution to the problem of where and how to draw the line between reasonable corporal punishment and maltreatment that is grounded in long-standing parental-autonomy norms and informed by the science that teaches when and how children suffer harm. Additionally, and again regardless of the constitutional status of the right to use corporal punishment, most child-maltreatment investigations implicate constitutional limits on state searches and seizures, including the requirement that the state establish a likelihood of maltreatment before it intervenes.200 Second, most CPS investigations result in a finding of no maltreatment. Several states require not only a finding of physical injury but also a determination that the injury harms the child or impairs the health of the child.20 On the other hand, in Arkansas, certain intentional or knowing acts constitute abuse whether or not the child sustains physical injury. A parent is privileged to use physical force to discipline his or her child so long as. It is especially tricky to do so in an ethnically, religiously, and politically diverse setting like the United States, particularly when the context relates to the intersection of intimate family matters and the relationship of the state to the family. Unlike the necessity standard, the reasonableness standard permits the fact-finder to defer to parents judgment so long as it is within the range of acceptable decisions. The following model corporal-punishment provision is based on the structure and principles articulated above. For example, the Iowa Supreme Court rejected a CPS rule that reddening of the skin lasting for twenty-four hours or more is a physical injury per se. Not many parents have the will or the resources to appeal adverse decisions.90 And CPS agencies may face political and procedural hurdles that make appeals difficult for them too.91 As a result, although appellate courts are formally superior institutions and responsible for making common law, they are less relevant on a day-to-day basis than trial courts. On average, 17% of children experienced severe physical punishment (being hit on the head, face or ears or hit hard and repeatedly) but in some countries this figure exceeds 40%. Even when CPS decisionmaking is administratively constrained, however, personal and community ideology continues to play a considerable role in this process. Courts often consider how much force and how many strikes parents employ when they administer physical discipline, as well as whether they use an object such as a belt or paddle.103 The cases suggest that courts view with more suspicion a parent who uses extreme force to strike a child repeatedly with a paddle or belt than one who swats a child a couple of times with an open hand; correspondingly, such discipline is more likely to be found to exceed the bounds of reasonableness.104 To some extent, these factors simply correspond to the degree or severity of harm inflicted on the child.

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