Child Abuse: An Overview
![handle is hein.journals/creigh8 and id is 763 raw text is:
CHILD ABUSE: AN OVERVIEW
RICHARD H. HAYS*
Just 100 year ago in New York City, a little girl named Mary
Ellen was unchained from her bed and afforded safety and protec-
tion from her adoptive parents who had abused and neglected her.1
No laws then in effect covered the protection of an abused child,
but the efforts of a concerned group of church workers were suc-
cessful in persuading the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals to intervene on Mary Ellen's behalf, based on her member-
ship in the animal kingdom. She was thus provided protection
from abuse by means of laws in effect which protected animals.
This was the point of beginning for the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children in New York City in 1875.
Much has been done during these past 100 years through the
efforts of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Many other concerned groups and persons have brought gains in
the protection afforded children as well as the methods used to treat
child abuse.2,
Seeing a child who has been abused, reading about a child abuse
situation in the local paper, or hearing state and national statistics
on child abuse arouses feelings of anger and revulsion in most
people. These feelings of anger and contempt toward abusing
parents were basic to much of the treatment of child abuse during
the first 65 to 70 years since the now famous Mary Ellen case. Seri-
ous abuse of a child was often reason enough during that period
to remove a child permanently from his/her parents' custody, and
often for the parent to be prosecuted under the criminal law.
During the past 25 to 30 years the Children's Division of the
American Humane Association has researched the concept that
child abuse is the result of certain serious problems confronting
parents. Helping parents bring order into their lives, so that they
* Richard H. Hays is the Administrator of Child Protective Services,
Douglas County Social Services, Omaha, Nebraska.
1. A. ALLEN & A. MoRoN, THIS IS YOUR CHILD; THE STORY OF THE NA-
TIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PaEVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN 16 (1967).
2. Radbill, A History of Child Abuse and Infanticide, in THE BAmTER
Cm.n 3 (R. HELFER & C. K]mPE eds. 1968).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/creigh8&div=58&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Child Abuse: An Overview
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