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child homocides
A review of Department of Justice statistics concludes the majority
of child maltreatment is committed by the mother (female primary
caretaker with 54% female acting alone, 24% acting with the male).
This trend shifts however, with increasing age. While men probably
have a greater incidence of violent behavior, younger children remain
relatively protected because men are so often not around. The twin
peak incidences for child homocide are ages less than two and greater
than thirteen. Caretakers are responsible for most deaths under two.
Focusing our interventions on non-paternal males in the home skews us
from a greater, more brutal truth. I suspect many of the women who end
up abusing and neglecting their children are themselves victims of a
previous generation, now engaged with violent men, in a series of
revictimizing relationships, in a violent life where they can see no
way out (see Widom).
http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/2000_5_2/contents.html
http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_5_1/contents.html
Doug Waite, MD
New York City