North Dakota Law Review Volume 53 Number 2 Article 3 1976 Child Abuse and Neglect in North Dakota William N. Friedrich Jerry A. Boriskin Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/ndlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Friedrich, William N. and Boriskin, Jerry A. (1976) "Child Abuse and Neglect in North Dakota," North Dakota Law Review: Vol. 53 : No. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://commons.und.edu/ndlr/vol53/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Dakota Law Review by an authorized editor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT IN NORTH DAKOTA WILLIAM N. FRIEDRICH* JERRY A. BORISKIN* I. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT A. INTRODUCTION The willful abuse and neglect of children, either individually or collectively, by parents, relatives, siblings, or the policies and regu- lations of our society's institutions, are inexcusable affronts to hu- man decency. Particularly within the last decade, this brutalization of children has become the subject of considerable attention in pro- fessional literature1 and the mass media. Various synonyms for child abuse have been proposed, for exam- ple, the battered child syndrome- and suspected child abuse and ne- glect (SCAN) .3 Regardless of the name, child abuse is now a ma- jor cause of death and disability among children. According to Vin- cent 3. Fontana, chairman of New York's Mayor's Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, "Statistics strongly suggest that child bat- tering is probably the most common cause of death in children today, outnumbering those caused by any of the infectious diseases, leukem- ' 4 ia, and auto accidents.