Essay On Child Abuse And Neglect

The article, “Does Child Abuse and Neglect Increase Risk for Perpetration of Violence Inside and Outside the Home?” written by Iszabela Milaniak and Cathy Spatz Widom seem to address the issue over survivors of child abuse. The research problem being addressed is if people with histories of physical and sexual child abuse and or neglect lead them to be involved in violent and or criminal activity.
It is very evident that child abuse and neglect is a complex issue with countless effects that will effect the survivor for the rest of his or her life. The authors begin by stating that violence both inside and outside the home is a serious health concern in the United States and that “7.6 million people were violently victimized and about 1.1 million were victimized by intimate partners” (U.S. department of Justice, Office of …show more content…
If a child is sexually abused, he or she may try to push away the negative emotions that come from that and replace them with aggression or anger. A major issue regarding the connection between child abuse and criminal records is that there may be a bias and can impact the official records. There is also a chance of a violent criminal blaming his or her violent actions on being abused as a child yet it was not recorded because it is such a personal and scary concept to reach out to someone. The data on self reported child abuse is almost double the number of child abuse arrest, self reported data can be misleading. According to Milaniak and Widom, individuals with histories of childhood abuse and/or neglect were almost three times more likely than matched controls to perpetrate child abuse. This statement does not take into account of how many of these individuals were telling the truth or not.