{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03212616822429906, 'fraction_numerical': 0.015186915887850467, 'mean_word_length': 5.193490054249548, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Child maltreatment: is the glass half full yet?

As someone working in the child abuse field, it is heartening to see the editors of the Journal of Forensic Nursing (JFN) making the effort to produce an entire special issue on “child maltreatment.” More than four decades ago, Kempe and colleagues (1962) started a dedicated effort to address the monumental problem of abuse that faced children and families throughout the world. Despite so much time since Kempe and colleagues’ transformational paper, “The Battered Child Syndrome,” was published, child abuse and neglect, or more generally, child maltreatment, remains a pervasive problem in every nation and society on our planet. The United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO) cast the problem of child abuse and neglect as a major public health issue. They placed child maltreatment in the broader context of violence toward children and families (UN, 2006). This broad approach is indeed wise in that while there are many forms of child maltreatment and various causes for the dynamics that give rise to patterns of caregiving in which a child is injured or placed at risk for injury, the necessary interventions offered and provided are often inconsistent within and across national borders. Additionally, the short-, mid-, and long-term consequences of abuse to children vary considerably. Paolo Sergio Pinheiro stated emphatically in his August 2006 report to the UN General Secretary that no violence against children can be justified and that all violence is preventable (UN, 2006). Specifically, Mr. Pinheiro stated: “The study should mark a turning point— an end to adult justification of violence against children, whether accepted as ‘tradition’ or disguised as ‘discipline.’ There can be no compromise in challenging violence against children. Children’s uniqueness—their potential and vulnerability, their dependence on adults—makes it imperative that they have more, not less, protection from violence.” Accurate international statistics are difficult to come by. In the United States where data are readily available, however, we know that in 2006 an estimated 905,000 children were maltreated (USDHHS, 2008). The vast majority of substantiated maltreatment cases were for child neglect (66.3%) followed by physical abuse (16%), child sexual abuse (8.8%), and psychological abuse (6.6%). Given such widespread incidence statistics, is there any room for optimism if nearly one million children in the United States were either abused or neglected and presumably millions more are being maltreated worldwide? Is it possible to metaphorically see the glass being half full in terms of our professional and societal approach to child abuse and neglect? As with all difficult questions, the answer depends on how one thinks about the problem and how we go about coming up with an answer. First, the 905,000 substantiated cases came as a result of the receipt and processing of approximately 3.3 million reports of “suspected” abuse and neglect involving approximately 6 million children (USDHHS, 2008). Optimistically, decades of efforts at raising awareness of the existence of child maltreatment, and the need to report professional suspicions, would appear to have taken some root. While we know there is some level of underreporting, and while we suspect that not enough reports are being accepted for investigation, at least we know that