Centenial Celebration

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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri

Time: 12:10 pm

Results for children, exposure to violence (u.s.)

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Author: U.S. Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence

Title: Defending Childhood. Protect. Heal. Thrive.

Summary: Exposure to violence is a national crisis that affects approximately two out of every three of our children. Of the 76 million children currently residing in the United States, an estimated 46 million can expect to have their lives touched by violence, crime, abuse, and psychological trauma this year. In 1979, U.S. Surgeon General Julius B. Richmond declared violence a public health crisis of the highest priority, and yet 33 years later that crisis remains. Whether the violence occurs in children’s homes, neighborhoods, schools, playgrounds or playing fields, locker rooms, places of worship, shelters, streets, or in juvenile detention centers, the exposure of children to violence is a uniquely traumatic experience that has the potential to profoundly derail the child’s security, health, happiness, and ability to grow and learn — with effects lasting well into adulthood. Exposure to violence in any form harms children, and different forms of violence have different negative impacts. Sexual abuse places children at high risk for serious and chronic health problems, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, suicidality, eating disorders, sleep disorders, substance abuse, and deviant sexual behavior. Sexually abused children often become hypervigilant about the possibility of future sexual violation, experience feelings of betrayal by the adults who failed to care for and protect them. Physical abuse puts children at high risk for lifelong problems with medical illness, PTSD, suicidality, eating disorders, substance abuse, and deviant sexual behavior. Physically abused children are at heightened risk for cognitive and developmental impairments, which can lead to violent behavior as a form of self-protection and control. These children often feel powerless when faced with physical intimidation, threats, or conflict and may compensate by becoming isolated (through truancy or hiding) or aggressive (by bullying or joining gangs for protection). Physically abused children are at risk for significant impairment in memory processing and problem solving and for developing defensive behaviors that lead to consistent avoidance of intimacy. Intimate partner violence within families puts children at high risk for severe and potentially lifelong problems with physical health, mental health, and school and peer relationships as well as for disruptive behavior. Witnessing or living with domestic or intimate partner violence often burdens children with a sense of loss or profound guilt and shame because of their mistaken assumption that they should have intervened or prevented the violence or, tragically, that they caused the violence. They frequently castigate themselves for having failed in what they assume to be their duty to protect a parent or sibling(s) from being harmed, for not having taken the place of their horribly injured or killed family member, or for having caused the offender to be violent. Children exposed to intimate partner violence often experience a sense of terror and dread that they will lose an essential caregiver through permanent injury or death. They also fear losing their relationship with the offending parent, who may be removed from the home, incarcerated, or even executed. Children will mistakenly blame themselves for having caused the batterer to be violent. If no one identifies these children and helps them heal and recover, they may bring this uncertainty, fear, grief, anger, shame, and sense of betrayal into all of their important relationships for the rest of their lives. Community violence in neighborhoods can result in children witnessing assaults and even killings of family members, peers, trusted adults, innocent bystanders, and perpetrators of violence. Violence in the community can prevent children from feeling safe in their own schools and neighborhoods. Violence and ensuing psychological trauma can lead children to adopt an attitude of hypervigilance, to become experts at detecting threat or perceived threat — never able to let down their guard in order to be ready for the next outbreak of violence. They may come to believe that violence is “normal,” that violence is “here to stay,” and that relationships are too fragile to trust because one never knows when violence will take the life of a friend or loved one. They may turn to gangs or criminal activities to prevent others from viewing them as weak and to counteract feelings of despair and powerlessness, perpetuating the cycle of violence and increasing their risk of incarceration. They are also at risk for becoming victims of intimate partner violence in adolescence and in adulthood. The picture becomes even more complex when children are “polyvictims” (exposed to multiple types of violence). As many as 1 in 10 children in this country are polyvictims, according to the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s groundbreaking National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV). The toxic combination of exposure to intimate partner violence, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and/or exposure to community violence increases the risk and severity of posttraumatic injuries and mental health disorders by at least twofold and up to as much as tenfold. Polyvictimized children are at very high risk for losing the fundamental capacities necessary for normal development, successful learning, and a productive adulthood. The financial costs of children’s exposure to violence are astronomical. The financial burden on other public systems, including child welfare, social services, law enforcement, juvenile justice, and, in particular, education, is staggering when combined with the loss of productivity over children’s lifetimes. It is time to ensure that our nation’s past inadequate response to children’s exposure to violence does not negatively affect children’s lives any further. We must not allow violence to deny any children their right to physical and mental health services or to the pathways necessary for maturation into successful students, productive workers, responsible family members, and parents and citizens. The findings and recommendations of the task force are organized into six chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of the problem and sets forth 10 foundational recommendations. The next two chapters offer a series of recommendations to ensure that we reliably identify, screen, and assess all children exposed to violence and thereafter give them support, treatment, and other services designed to address their needs. In the fourth and fifth chapters, the task force focuses on prevention and emphasizes the importance of effectively integrating prevention, intervention, and resilience across systems by nurturing children through warm, supportive, loving, and nonviolent relationships in our homes and communities. In the sixth and final chapter of this report, the task force calls for a new approach to juvenile justice, one that acknowledges that the vast majority of the children involved in that system have been exposed to violence, necessitating the prioritization of services that promote their healing.

Details: Washington, DC: The Task Force, 2012. 183p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 30, 2013 at: http://www.justice.gov/defendingchildhood/cev-rpt-full.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: United States

URL: http://www.justice.gov/defendingchildhood/cev-rpt-full.pdf

Shelf Number: 127452

Keywords:
Child Abuse
Child Sexual Abuse
Children, Exposure to Violence (U.S.)
Community Violence
Intimate Partner Violence
Violence
Violent Crime