Child Maltreatment and the Role of Colorado Lawyers

• Jurisdiction: Colorado,United States,Federal
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 10 Pg. 79
• Pages: 79
• Publication year: 2002

31 Colo.Law. 79 Colorado Lawyer 2002.

2002, October, Pg. 79. Child Maltreatment and the Role of Colorado Lawyers

---

79

Vol. 31, No. 10, Pg. 79

The Colorado Lawyer
October 2002
Vol. 31, No. 10 [Page 79]

Departments
CBA Family Violence Program
Child Maltreatment and the Role of Colorado Lawyers
by Marvin Ventrell

Marvin Ventrell is the Executive Director of the National Association of Counsel for Children ("NACC") headquartered in Denver. He is the author of numerous articles on children and the law, and is the recipient of the 2002 ABA National Child Advocacy Award. For more information on the NACC or on representing children, call (888) 828-NACC (6222) or visit www.naccchildlaw.org

Child maltreatment1 is part of each of our lives Approximately one million children in the United States2 are confirmed victims of child maltreatment each year. These children carry the effects of their victimization throughout their lives and are at increased risk of committing delinquent and violent acts.3 Beyond direct victimization all of society pays the price for child maltreatment, resulting in increasing costs of criminal justice, social service, and medical and mental health care. The estimated economic cost of the response to child maltreatment in the United States is $92 billion per year.4

For over a decade, child maltreatment has been defined as a national emergency,5 not unlike a health care epidemic, although it has failed to be recognized and addressed as such. Recent press coverage of sexual abuse by clergy and child abductions has made everyone more aware of the victimization of children, although there has not been so much an increase in abuse as an increase in press coverage of those particularly marketable stories.6 The painful reality is that child maltreatment always has been a significant force, and our society has failed to adequately respond.

Lawyers have an obligation and an opportunity to play an important role in the response to child maltreatment. This article discusses the history and nature of child maltreatment, the legal system response, and what members of the Colorado Bar can do to help.

History and Nature of
Child Maltreatment

Child maltreatment encompasses physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect. It occurs from birth to adulthood in the forms of neglect, beating, rape, and torture. It occurs in all racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic groups.7 Data from the federal government indicate that there are approximately three million reports of child maltreatment each year nationally and that approximately one million children are substantiated as victims.8 More than 1,000 of these children die per year.9 In Colorado, almost 10,000 confirmed incidents of abuse were reported in 1999, resulting in thirty-two deaths.10 Although children are sometimes victimized by strangers, 87 percent of abused children are abused by one or more of their parents.11 Tragically, young children from birth to age three are most likely to be abused.12

What has happened to our society in the twenty-first century that has caused so many children to be abused? The truth is that child maltreatment has been a part of our world for most of recorded history.13 For centuries, children have been beaten, enslaved, abandoned, and sexually exploited, often with the acquiescence of society and the state.14 It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that the United...