Child protection

“ Fortunately, we have come to understand better the duty of every American to protect our children, and our knowledge about the prevention and treatment of child abuse continues to grow. We better realize the duty of individuals-neighbors, friends, clergy, teachers, parents, relatives, doctors, nurses, volunteers, and so on-State and local authorities and community child protection agencies to safeguard children and to provide support, information, and guidance to families in which maltreatment of children may happen. ”

“ Child-protection to-day is solely concerned with attempts to palliate the evils which necessarily result from the essential nature of the social organism of to-day, and is not concerned with efforts to transform the nature of that organism. Child-protection [55] alleviates some of the symptoms of capitalism, but does nothing to prevent the ever-renewed production of such symptoms. Thus we see that child-protection is not a scientific therapeutic method, for such a method tends, as time passes, to render itself superfluous. Child-protection is an important department of social activity. ”

“ It is gradually absorbing all the really valuable child-protection societies, founds and administers all kinds of institutions for child-protection, is directly associated with all the executive instruments of the official work of child-protection, and sustains and amplifies the work of government in this direction. ”

“ Such societies may play a very useful part, but they do not render the organisation and administration of poor-relief and child-protection by the central government and the local authority altogether superfluous. ”

“ It is not an advantage, but a disadvantage, that child-protection is necessary to-day. The country which has need of numerous institutions for purposes of social betterment is in a bad way; and, indeed, the more of such institutions it needs, the worse must its condition be. ”

“ There are even cases in which a remedial measure exercises an unfavourable influence upon the disease and upon the patient’s general condition, and none the less it has to be administered, in order to ward off some greater evil. To-day, child-protection is useful and even indispensable. It is true that a well-planned social order affords the best child-protection, and such an order is of far greater value than child-protection in the narrower sense of the term ”

“ Child-protection as undertaken by the community at large lacks co-ordination with reference to any well-defined plan of activity, it effects much that is unnecessary and even harmful, whilst very necessary work is often done badly or not at all. ”

“ But of two countries which have equal need for such institutions, the one which possesses them stands at a higher level than the one in which they have not yet come into existence. This last consideration must not be forgotten when we are making a comparative study of child-protection in various countries. ”

“ Hence child-protection, the principal means for the diminution of infant and child mortality, is not only an important part of our campaign against the excessive mortality of male children, but will tend to redress the existing numerical inequality between the sexes, and thus to ameliorate the conditions of our social life. ”

“ The satisfaction of very pressing needs, the overcoming of extraordinary difficulties, is possible only to the central government. Even in those countries in which local self-government is in a very advanced state of development, it is better that such legislative activity as is requisite in the domain of child-protection should be left to the central government.
The central government more readily takes over the duties of child-protection from the hands of the community at large than from the local authorities. ”

“ Both the National Child Protection Act of 1993 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 contain provisions that help communities identify offenders who may pose a threat to children's well-being. ”

“ We must certainly dispute the assertion that a child which is bodily weak is of necessity also intellectually and morally defective, since thousands of instances establish the fact that a child which is bodily weak often proves to be a useful member of society. If there were no child-protection, children would perish whose survival is unquestionably desirable. ”

“ When we pass judgment upon a social institution, we must always endeavour to ascertain whether any defect we may notice connected with its working belongs to the social institution as such, and whether the fault is inseparable from the institution, or whether we may reasonably expect that in the further course of development, or as a result of better organisation, this particular defect will disappear. In the work of child-protection, these fundamental principles must always be kept in mind. ”

“ In making our decision we should never lose sight of the principle that, except in the case of the really bad children, the advantages of a family education should as far as possible be given. Only in the case of children with obstinate and unconquerable criminal tendencies is continuous institutional care essential; for abnormal children, prolonged curative educational treatment is requisite, as far as possible, in institutions or colonies founded especially for this purpose. ”

“ I urge officials at all levels of government to take decisive action to ensure the safety and protection of the children in their respective jurisdictions, and I urge all our law enforcement agencies to take particular notice of the danger that threatens any child who has lost his or her home. I urge every American family to take the proper precautions to protect their children. ”

“ They are best acquainted with the people and their needs, and their acquaintance with these is the more intimate the smaller the community. Hence the necessary duties can often be carried out most effectively and most economically by the local authorities. Many retrograde local authorities, especially the smaller ones and those in the country districts, are hostile to many of the applications of child-protection, regarding them as immoral, and they may even be quite unable to grasp the mental attitude of those who advocate child-protection. ”

“ Every court in dealing with a child or young person who is brought before it, either as being in need of care or protection, or as an offender or otherwise, shall have regard to the welfare of the child or young person and shall in a proper case take steps for removing him from undesirable surroundings, and for securing that proper provision is made for his education and training. ”

“ The day will come in which fatherhood and motherhood will be permitted only to the strong, and in which every endeavour will be made to prevent the birth of diseased and weakly individuals. As far as the “protection” of a great many children is concerned, the method that will be adopted will be to prevent their ever coming into the world. In the future, we shall know better than we know to-day which children are competent to grow up into useful members of society ”

“ In the last fifteen years of this tireless battle for the safety of the State the intervention of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has been invoked for 138,891 little ones; it has thrown its protection around more than twenty-five thousand helpless children, and has convicted nearly sixteen thousand wretches of child-beating and abuse. ”

“ The States parties shall take all necessary legislative, administrative and judicial measures to guarantee the protection, survival, development and well-being of the child in an atmosphere of freedom and dignity and shall ensure, in all cases, that the child's best interests are the basic criterion for all measures taken in his regard, whether the child is at risk of delinquency or is a juvenile offender. ”

“ The success of the campaign against excessive child mortality depends above all upon the success of our measures for infant-life protection. During intra-uterine life the relationship between the child and the mother is of such a kind that the legislator must protect the mother if he wishes to protect the child. The institutions described in the last chapter relate chiefly to the mother, and it is indirectly only that they redound to the advantage of the child. After birth the relationship between the child and its mother is a different one. ”

“ One of the fundamental rights, surely, of every child is to be counted, to have the community of which he is a part know something about him, and have his record kept where those interested in his protection and care, in his health, his schooling, his vocational training, may find out what they need to know in order to aid his progress or check his wrongdoing.
Every Child Should Have Social Protection.—In the next place, the demand of every child must surely be for community protection against those who for greed or evil purpose would exploit his life. ”

“ The State lays down the principles in accordance with which the foster-parents must bring up the child, and sees that the foster-parents have access to expert advice concerning every department of the hygiene of childhood. The State insists that whenever necessary the foster-children shall have medical aid, that the children shall attend the elementary school, &c. If the foster-parents apply these principles properly in their care of the foster-children, they are likely to take care that their own children are treated at least equally well. ”

“ Private and Official Activities.—To-day much of the work of the relief of destitution and of child-protection is undertaken by voluntary organisations, founded and administered by private individuals who are engaged also in other activities. These private persons work gratuitously, but often discharge their duties better than professional salaried and permanently appointed officials. Their work is better individualised, it is less bureaucratic, and has more heart in it. ”

“ Although some authors maintain that the connection we have pointed out obtains only among comparatively uncivilised peoples, and that as civilisation progresses, sentiment alone is decisive in forming our views in the matter of Child-Protection, those who advance such a contention may be referred to the example of modern France. ”

“ In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.
2. States Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians, or other individuals legally responsible for him or her, and, to this end, shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures. ”

“ On page 1 the definition of 'Child in need of care and protection' is so widened as to cover every possible type of preventive case, if read in conjunction with the amendments passed during last session and with the Cabinet authorities to spend public funds on such children.
"We do not think it necessary to increase the powers of Child Welfare Officers for these purposes. To give them more actual powers over children who have not committed an offence would be to risk justifiable public objection to interference with the liberty of the subject and the rights of parents." ”

“ Bipartisan support for this initiative-the first Federal investment in child welfare protection in more than a decade-has enabled States to use resources flexibly and creatively to strengthen families and work to reduce child abuse.
But government alone cannot end mistreatment. Social service agencies, schools, religious organizations, law enforcement agencies, businesses, and concerned citizens are all working to help children live up to their full potential. ”

“ It is seen that the standpoint of the existing law, by which only the gravest offences, such as the abduction of a child, or the infliction upon a child of grievous bodily harm, are specified as punishable, is inadequate. Ever more general becomes the demand that parental neglect of the proper maintenance or education of a child should be constituted an offence per se, and dealt with as such. ”

“ In the modern State, the following ideas as to parental authority are generally prevalent. Parental authority involves duties as well as rights. Our laws give rights to parents only in order to enable them to fulfil their duties. They are, in a sense, plenipotentiaries of the State, entrusted with the duty of bringing up their children in a state of bodily, mental, and moral health, and of ensuring that these children shall develop in such a way that they will be useful to society. ”

“ Is it not desirable that the circumstance that the criminal offence was committed against a child should be stated in the law expressly as a reason for an increase in the severity of the [255] punishment, or else that the law should give children, precisely because they are children, a higher degree of protection against certain offences? Owing to the fact that young people, in consequence of their physical weakness, are much less able than adults to resist aggression, there is every reason for the preferential legal protection of children. ”

“ A notable provision is that which places the supervision over such children, in the hands of women.
An increased extension of the right of society in this direction is one of its most important provisions for self-protection, and is just as legitimate a limitation of individual freedom, as the laws to prevent the extension of contagious diseases. Unfortunately such regulations are often made ineffective by red tape. The parents or guardians of the neglected child must be admonished; the unruly child must be warned, and if this is not sufficient, the law provides that it must be disciplined. ”