In contemporary American society, a crime of some kind occurs every two seconds. A property crime occurs every four seconds; a burglary occurs every ten seconds; someone is assaulted every twenty-nine seconds; and a woman is raped every forty-six seconds (Thomas, 1994). Despite these statistics, murder remains the most serious criminal offense and remains at the head of the crime list. Statistically, American’s seem to increasingly prefer the use of a handgun to commit crime. A citizen who resides in Los Angeles is more likely to die from a bullet wound than a traffic accident. Since 1990, more than 90,000 Americans have been murdered, a number exceeding American casualties during the Vietnam war (Thomas, 1994).
These statistics readily show that we live in a violent society. The costs in terms of dollars and lives can be devastating from such statistics. It is of little surprise in such a violent society that our children and adolescents commit more crimes than every before. Since 1965, crime rates the juvenile crime rate has more than tripled: between 1980 and 1990, the crime rate for out nation’s youth, ages ten to seventeen, rose 27% (Jensen, 1998).
Yet, the literature on juvenile delinquency and crime suggests that the rising crime rates among juveniles may stem from the increasing incidences of child abuse. Since the 1980s, crime researchers started taking a critical assessment on youth crime. Eventually, they identified child abuse in the form of family violence as being a possible like to delinquent behaviors among juveniles. They also redefined this form of family violence and characterized child abuse as harsh physical mistreatment toward a child from their parent(s), guardian(s), and/or loved ones.
Studies from the 1970s report that in 1975, between one and 1.9 million children had been physically kicked, bitten, and/or punched by their parents. That same year, between 275,000 and 750,000 of that m...