Should Abusive Parents Be Punished or Treated Research Paper

Should Abusive Parents Be Punished or Treated - Research Paper Example Parenting has usually been treated as a private issue in the United States, and the government has been hesitant to meddle with the rights of parents to care for or raise their children in their own way. Even though a number of laws have been implemented since the 1960s forbidding extreme parental cruelty against children, there is still, in reality, tremendous lenience for violence against children (Westman, 2007). These aggressive actions may not be viewed as abusive by some but are regarded as abuse by many professionals. Many states do not forbid parents from hitting their children. Yet, most states have laws that identify child abuse. The federal government has ratified the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) which establishes rules that the states should integrate into their child abuse laws (Wallace & Roberson, 2010). CAPTA mandates the designation of child abuse to add (Hirschy, Thompson, & Wilkinson, 2010, 2): â€Å"Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm†. In a research on cases of absence of supervision, many involved parents who entrusted their children to an incompetent guardian or caregiver or parents who totally abandoned their children. In 40% of the cases examined, dependable parents admitted: â€Å"they believed there was nothing wrong with what had happened† (Collins, 2006, 808). Moreover, the caseworkers who were instructed to evaluate the case documents thoroughly reported â€Å"that in more than half the cases†¦ the supervision problem was due to a lack of knowledge or poor judgment about the abilities or needs of children of a given age†.  Ã‚