Juvenile Justice-Child Abuse Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Juvenile Justice-Child Abuse - Assignment Example Instead, the increase is as a result of inadequate funding from the government. Many states have insufficient finances to carry out effective protection of child rights. The increase of child abuse cases since 2007 can be attributed to the 2008 economic crisis (Spencer, 2009). Child abuse cases are under recorded in the United States because of the federal government’s definition of abuse deaths. The federal government treats fatal cases of child abuse as negligence of the caregiver rather than maltreatment. Most cases, which involve the abuse of children, go unrecorded in government statistics due to this technicality. The undercounting of the abused children is another clear indication that cases of child abuse are rising in America (ECM 2010). In the United States, there are restrictive confidentiality laws. These laws have shielded access to information on child abuse cases. Elected officials or journalists cannot access or cover the stories of particular child abuses because of the restrictive laws. These restrictive laws were initially meant to protect the privacy of abused children. These laws have, therefore, contributed significantly to the under recording of child abuse cases (ECM