According to FindLaw, crimes against children consists of “any type of cruelty inflicted upon a child, including mental abuse, physical harm, neglect, and sexual abuse or exploitation.” Most children, especially children from ages 0-4.5, die from serious physical injuries. In the year of 2014, the amount of children victims was estimated to be over 315,000 in the United States of America (National Children’s Alliance). If the number of unreported crimes were included, the number would be significantly greater.
How Children Abuse Crimes Affect Those Involved Children abuse crimes victims are protected by the state child abuse laws. The laws require citizens to report any suspected child abuse, determines what is defined as child abuse, …show more content…
Due to this lack of knowledge, they have this mindset that the criminal justice system is too lenient when it comes to child abuse crime sentences. It is quite normal for them to feel this way as children are a depiction of innocence, and anyone who tries to take that away from them should be severely punished. According to North American studies, that trying to gather the public’s opinions through a poll would be inaccurate and pointless. The reasons why are because the participants would most likely be heavily influenced by the media, they tend to only think of the worst possible child abuse case, and they fail to take all the possible sentencing choices the courts have into consideration. Unable to find a way to change the public’s perspective on sentencing, the media has full control of how citizens respond to the court decisions made for child abuse cases. As a result, sentencing for crimes against children could also be influenced by the public’s opinion. According to the research of Mike Berry et al. (2012), “Politicians may be pressured to enact policies which placate sections of the media, rather than ones which research evidence suggest are actually likely to be effective (p. 572).” Child abuse crime cases that would be mostly affected would be the more serious crimes that are more heavily reported. However, the media’s idea of a serious crime and what is legally defined as a serious felony could be very
How Children Abuse Crimes Affect Those Involved Children abuse crimes victims are protected by the state child abuse laws. The laws require citizens to report any suspected child abuse, determines what is defined as child abuse, …show more content…
Due to this lack of knowledge, they have this mindset that the criminal justice system is too lenient when it comes to child abuse crime sentences. It is quite normal for them to feel this way as children are a depiction of innocence, and anyone who tries to take that away from them should be severely punished. According to North American studies, that trying to gather the public’s opinions through a poll would be inaccurate and pointless. The reasons why are because the participants would most likely be heavily influenced by the media, they tend to only think of the worst possible child abuse case, and they fail to take all the possible sentencing choices the courts have into consideration. Unable to find a way to change the public’s perspective on sentencing, the media has full control of how citizens respond to the court decisions made for child abuse cases. As a result, sentencing for crimes against children could also be influenced by the public’s opinion. According to the research of Mike Berry et al. (2012), “Politicians may be pressured to enact policies which placate sections of the media, rather than ones which research evidence suggest are actually likely to be effective (p. 572).” Child abuse crime cases that would be mostly affected would be the more serious crimes that are more heavily reported. However, the media’s idea of a serious crime and what is legally defined as a serious felony could be very