Children in military families 2x likely to die from abuse!

[lonestarnot]

TUESDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Children from military families are twice as likely to die from severe abuse as other children are, according to a North Carolina study.
Yahoo News

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. In my experience,

that's quite possibly true.

When I worked as a guardian ad litem for the court system in which Fort Belvoir was located, the majority of the kids for whom I served as g.a.l. were from military families. I had hoped maybe that had changed over the years, but I guess - alas - it hasn't.

[lonestarnot]

8. Well since bases are federal what leg of the gov. has authority there?

not CPS, they are state....so who then?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

9. Actually, military bases are under military jurisdiction, not federal

The Uniform Code of Military Justice prevails, but that does not supercede local authority over non-military matters.

Child abuse is a non-military matter.

[lonestarnot]

10. Good old UCMJ... conduct unbecoming an officer is a military matter

my question is the does Child Protective Service have authority on a base?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. "Conduct unbecoming ............."???

What does that have to do with child abuse in military families? You've lost me.

As I wrote previously, local courts have jurisdiction over non-military matters on military bases.

[lonestarnot]

12. Conduct unbecoming an officer or an enlisted person is actionable under

UCMJ as an article charge if I recall correctly. Child abuse would certainly qualify, therefore would UCMJ cover child abuse or does local Child Protective Services have authority? Also hats off to you for the guadian ad litem duty. That can be a heart breaking job, or very rewarding.

[Solly Mack]

13. The UCMJ does not apply to civilians such as spouses and children

A soldier suspected of child abuse can face both military courts and state courts...although, typically, one court will defer to the other...but they don't have to

Child abuse is very much a military matter when it involves a soldier.

Oh, and federal law does apply to military posts/bases per title 18 United States Code

My husband works for the Provost Marshal's Office here in Mannheim.

[lonestarnot]

14. Thanks for the info... not that I would ever need it again, because I may

have to commit child abuse if my kid ever decided to enlist! And if a draft swings our way, which it likely could from the looks of things, he's shipp'n out to parts unknown!

[Solly Mack]

15. I wouldn't let a child of mine enlist either

Get your child established as a conscientious objector now...

Attend Quaker meetings...attend anti-war protest...and establish him as a conscientious objector...The Quakers can tell you how to go about it. However, CO's can still be drafted into non-combat roles...so

If there is a draft, there will be groups in place to help hide kids...I'm hoping with all my heart your son never has to face such a decision...here's to peace! and the ousting of Bush Inc!!

[lonestarnot]

18. I can't use the Quakers, believe me I thought about it, but he's already

a conscientious objector! LOL Yes, he goes with me to protests and we'll dream up our own religion if need be. He wouldn't kill a gnat let alone a child or mother! I'd rather see him in the penn than in a war based on lies for a bushitler!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

20. Do what we did - if you can

We bought a house on Prince Edward Island, and made sure there's plenty of room for the youngsters we might ship up there. We'll fight the battle that might ensue once it begins, but we're getting all the kids out of the US before the government gets near them.

[lonestarnot]

24. Interesting.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

19. Sorry - I didn't make clear

that this was almost thirty years ago. I'm sure things have changed since then, although you're right about Federal jurisdiction running concurrently.

However, in the matter of child abuse, there was (and I'm not sure there is now) a standing practice of the military authorities immediately contacting locals and just as quickly relinquishing any claims, however tenuous, they might have had to jurisdiction. In fact, the military had no apparatus for dealing with these cases, so the jurisdiction they might have exercised would have been specious and only academic.

There was no foster care system on any military base into which a child could quickly and safely be delivered. That's why local courts always had jurisdiction. I have had the unpleasant experience more than once, of being taken onto base by local cops, joined by MPs, and having them stand by while I took physical custody of children in trouble. More than once, military parents tried to take their injured children out of local civilian hospitals and get them back to the base, in the misbegotten hope that local police would not be able to follow them there. They were wrong.

Do you know if the military now handles child abuse cases? Your comments suggests that it does, and, after all these years, my interest is whetted. Thank you.

[Solly Mack]

22. The military will apply the UCMJ to a soldier over child abuse

and that soldier will also face state charges....that's what I said and that's basically all I said. I never said they "handled" child abuse cases...though MPI and CID do investigate such cases and they are the ones that call CPS to have the child removed when it's CONUS.

I never spoke to the foster care situation but I will now.


We have a foster care program on post in Germany. We have to....no local American social workers on the economy...but we do have social service workers on post. I'm part of that program and we take in foster military kids for a host of reasons...to include child abuse, domestics, and deployments.

On CONUS post, the local child protective services handle the foster program, naturally...I never said otherwise.

But the military can and will charge a soldier for child abuse...even if it's their spouse that commits the crime.

As I stated, most times they will defer to the local courts...but they'll add their own charges from the UCMJ just to chapter the soldier for the crime. So a soldier who abuses a child can go be punished by both the state and the military for child abuse. I've seen it happen several times, so I know it happens. Point being, child abuse DOES fall under the UCMJ under one of those wonderful catch-all articles.


I forgot to mention:

There's a soldier from Fort Carson serving 40 years at Leavenworth for sexual abuse, which falls under child abuse, of his daughter. The state courts deferred to the military courts in that case...and the military sent the soldier to jail for child abuse...arrested him, charged him , tried him, convicted him, and jailed him...all within military jurisdiction.

I was stationed at Fort Carson when this happened. In fact, he was a soldier I knew and I know the case well. I knew the child.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

25. Things have changed

It's good to know you're part of a helpful system. Things have changed dramatically.

When i served as g.a.l., the military wanted nothing but to make it all go away. That's why they were so quick to hand their soldier - and the spouses were always military, which made it an even more desperate situation when I was called in - over to our jurisdiction. If the situation proved to be as dangerous as initially suspected, the child was permanently removed from their custody, they were quickly discharged, most often with a general discharge, and the rest, as they say, was history. That's what those "catch-all' articles were for, even back then.

Relax. You don't have to defend a thing that you're doing or how the system works now. It's good your husband is part of it and that you've found a way to make your contribution. It's also grand to see how things have changed in almost three decades.

Thanks so much for the information.

[Solly Mack]

27. It has changed and we fight to bring more changes

It's still not a pretty situation in some cases. It's hard still to convince a commander that his soldier is abusing a child...but it has gotten better.

For all the "wins" we've had over the last decade...I've cried some bitter tears over the the losses.

I wish the CONUS posts would model themselves on the overseas posts. Not so much in leaving out the local CPS but in having an on-post social service as well... for those midnight and early morning removals...that way the child isn't totally ripped from their environment when it comes to schools and such...an abused child needs to know some things are normal and good. If that makes sense.

THanks!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

30. You are

doing the work of angels.

Bravissima........................

[Greylyn58]

2. Well that's interesting

as my dad was in the Marines for 30 years and my two brothers and I seemed to have done well. Hhhmmm....Was born in NC too. :evilgrin:

[AwakeAtLast]

3. Is there a link?

Thanks! :hi:

[lonestarnot]

5. Just an article on yahoo news from 5 minutes ago.

[candy]

4. It may be true,it may not be true. What study? Who did the study?

I am skeptical of all studies until I have a great deal of infromation and even then I don't trust them much.

[lonestarnot]

7. Here's the whole article

TUESDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Children from military families are twice as likely to die from severe abuse as other children are, according to a North Carolina study.

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Based on the findings, the pediatric experts who led the study are calling on officials at the Pentagon to do more to investigate the reasons children growing up in military households face such risks.


The study was presented Tuesday at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting, in Washington, D.C.


Researchers at the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute examined cases of child abuse murders in North Carolina from 1985 to 2000. They focused on cases involving babies and children up to 10 years old.


They report that four military installations are in the two counties with the highest rates of child abuse murders.


Overall, North Carolina had 378 abuse murders of children in this age group, for a annual rate of 2.2 deaths per 100,000 children. In Cumberland County -- home to Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base -- the abuse murder rate for children of military families was five deaths per 100,000 children, more than double the state average. The rate for children from non-military families living in Cumberland County was also higher than the state average.


In Onslow County -- home to Camp LeJeune/New River Air Station -- the annual abuse murder rate for children of military families was 4.9 per 100,000. The rate for non-military children in Onslow County was also higher than the state average.


"In this study, the long-term patterns of child abuse homicides are not coincidence," Marcia Herman-Geddens, senior fellow at the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute and an adjunct professor at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, said in a prepared statement.


"They suggest problems in and around North Carolina military families and military communities that predictably result in a consistently higher number and rate of child abuse homicides than in non-military communities."


And she said that "although military bases have many laudable programs and interventions to reduce child abuse and other family violence, strategies with sufficient effectiveness may be lacking, missing, inadequate and/or undermined by other influences on military and civilian families."

Against the rules but...
More action is required at the local, state and national levels to deal with this problem, Herman-Geddens said. The study recommends that the U.S. Department of Defense begin a data collection system for all child and adult cases of family violence, and that this information be made public so it can be used for prevention research.


The study also recommended that current prevention, treatment and support services available to military families be examined for effectiveness, and expanded with a coordinated response to family violence to reduce child and spouse abuse.


More information


The American Medical Association has more about child abuse

[candy]

29. Thank you!

[Solly Mack]

6. Link

http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/05/17/hscout525689.html

[BluGrl]

16. Where's the rest of the story?

"In Cumberland County -- home to Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base -- the abuse murder rate for children of military families was five deaths per 100,000 children, more than double the state average. The rate for children from non-military families living in Cumberland County was also higher than the state average."

In Onslow County -- home to Camp LeJeune/New River Air Station -- the annual abuse murder rate for children of military families was 4.9 per 100,000. The rate for non-military children in Onslow County was also higher than the state average."

Why didn't they list what the "also higher than the state average" rate was for children in the same counties but from non-military families.

If it was lower than those of military families, that would have driven the point home about the military and the author would have been insane not to include it. But since they didn't give the exact rate, that makes me think that the rate is the same or higher for non-military families living in those two counties.

[lonestarnot]

17. You can take it up with the author @ yahoo news...I was just the messenger

to DU Polly want a cracker?

[newyawker99]

31. Hi BluGrl!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[spooked]

21. Translation: CHILD ABUSERS 2X MORE LIKELY TO JOIN MILITARY

It's what the military often attracts: people who get off on picking on those weaker than they are.

Thus, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Child Abuse

[IrateCitizen]

23. Talk about your sweeping generalizations!

The reason for higher rates of child abuse in the military are many, but it's hardly because the military attracts twice as many child abusers! That's a gross generalization that isn't even really worthy of consideration, IMHO.

One reason is the terribly young parents you will find among lower enlisted in the military. Many times you have kids that are married at 18 and parents at 19. They're simply not ready to have children.

Another reason is the training cycle. A military parent can easily be away from home for 6-8 weeks at a time for field training exercises, and home for only 2 weeks in between FTX's at a time. This puts a tremendous strain on family relations and on the non-military member spouse.

Yet another reason is that the military itself is a violent institution, and it school its members in violence. War is, after all, the organized application of death and destruction on a massive scale. Expecting human beings to be a part of a culture that has primary goals such as these and NOT be affected by it in their "regular" lives is just plain foolhardy. Now, there are plenty of people who are able to avoid succumbing to these influences, but a child abuse rate of twice the national average, along with significant domestic abuse incidents (such as the murder of several returned SF soldiers' wives at Ft. Bragg following deployment to Afghanistan), should send up a red flag that war and family aren't exactly the most compatible things in the world.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

26. You nailed it in your second paragraph

The parents I dealt with - albeit a long time ago - were uniformly undereducated, barely out of their teens, and under financial stress.

They were woefully unequipped to have children or to be effective and caring parents. They were barely out of childhood themselves.

The situations were breeding grounds for rage, and, so often, the kids caught it.

[IrateCitizen]

28. I remember when I was at my officer basic course...

... and our trainers told us that as new lieutenants, we would routinely have to deal with family issues surrounding 19-20 year old kids. We would have to deal with their child issues. We would have to deal with them running up thousands of dollars in credit card debt. They told us that we would have to deal with shit that we couldn't even imagine.

Luckily, I was a reservist so I never had to deal with any of that stuff. But many of my classmates did. And those I stayed in touch with told me that there was nothing that could have been told to us that would have really prepared them for some of the soldier issues they had to deal with as young platoon leaders.