Laws Protecting Child Abuse Victims Today
All 50 states have laws that help protect children. Many of the programs for child protection are partially funded through federal laws. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), which was first passed in 1974 and most recently reauthorized in 2016, is federal legislation that helps with prevention, assessment, investigation, prosecution, and treatment activities through grants to public agencies and nonprofit organizations. It established the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect. This office collects and analyzes data on child abuse, using the data to help create best practice programs. CAPTA also created a minimum definition of child abuse and neglect to create consistency across the United States. This law also changed how children are treated in the courts, including having closed courtrooms for testimony, leading questions for young children, dolls to help with testimony, and two-way closed-circuit TVs (if requested) to help the child testify.
Other laws have been created to modify or enhance CAPTA. For instance, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 requires a safe care plan for infants affected by substance abuse, drug withdrawal, or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder at birth. Healthcare providers are required to follow the progress of the infant to ensure treatment needs are being met and to reduce the potential for abuse by the parent who also had an addiction issue.
The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 was enacted to combat domestic child human trafficking and support child abuse investigation and prosecution programs. t also created services for victims of child pornography. The Child Protection Act of 2012 increased penalties for the possession of child pornography, and it created the position of National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction to protect child witnesses and victims from harassment and intimidation.
There is a series of laws around sex offender registries in the United States. All 50 states and the District of Columbia maintain public sex offender registries accessible by the public over the Internet. Registration happens when someone is convicted of a sex crime (note that what sex crimes qualify for registry varies by jurisdiction). One issue with registries is that around a quarter of all registrants are juveniles, including children as young as nine years of age (Pitman & Parker, 2013). There are three main sex offender registry laws:
• The Jacob Wetterling Act of 1994 requires states to implement a sex offender and crimes against children registry. If states do not comply, they forfeit 10 percent of federal crime funds for the state. It is named for 11-year- old Jacob Wetterling who was abducted by a stranger in 1989. His mother was instrumental in creating this legislation in Minnesota and influencing the federal law.
• Megan’s law requires states to make information about registered sex offenders available to the public. It’s a subsection of the Wetterling Act. This is named after Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old girl who was raped and
murdered by her neighbor, who had two prior convictions around the sexual abuse of small children.
• The AdamWalsh Child Protection and Safety Act, passed in 2006, organizes sex offenders into three tiers and mandates that Tier 3 (the most serious tier) and two-time offenders update their whereabouts every three and six months, respectively. States are required to disclose information of Tier 2 and Tier 3 offenders publicly. It created a national DNA database and a national child abuse/neglect registry to make sure kids are not placed in the care of, or adopted by, people convicted of child abuse or neglect. The act was named after Adam Walsh, a seven-year-old Florida boy who was abducted and murdered in 1981. His father, John Walsh, has become a major advocate around child abuse and is known for his work as the host of America’s Most Wanted.
Many other federal and state laws have been written to help protect children in the United States from neglect and abuse. There is an increasing awareness about the need to protect children and increase penalties for those who harm children.