Our soon-to-be-released study of child fatalities documents numerous physical assaults on children that caseworkers, law enforcement, investigators and the courts knew about but ignored. Perhaps we have become desensitized to violence against children, or forgotten that it is illegal, or just feel powerless to stop it.
As with broader cultural responses to brutality, mass shootings for example, the question is how much violence we will tolerate. Should we simply concede that we can’t do anything about assaults against children other than our own? Or even accept the idea that children are the property of their parents, and we have no business interfering with their rights no matter what crimes they commit?
We have no new directions to recommend other than that we should persevere in loving all children and defending them from harm, including ones who are not our own.
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