The child maltreatment death rate in the US is triple Canada's and 11 times that of Italy. Millions of children are reported as abused and neglected every year. Why is that? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15193530
[WS:] Yet another evidence of the culture of violence that is peculiar to the US. The article points out at the lack of support services due to "small government" ideology as the main culprit. However, the culture of violence plays on important role too.
Some time ago I got a consulting job that gave me access to confidential data on child abuse reports in one of the US states. The government agency that sponsored the research wanted to know the effectiveness of a child abuse prevention program. One of the most stunning finding was that the best predictor of abuse report rates (i.e. number of abuse reports per population in an area) was the share of ethnic minorities in that area.
The effect was so strong that made other variables in the model insignificant.
Obviously, there is the effect of reporting that cannot be easily controlled for. Minorities tend to concentrate in urban areas of that state that as a rule have a more developed social service systems than rural areas, and thus the reporting of child abuse is more efficient in these urban areas. Second, there is a culture of silence" in the mostly white rural areas - especially among the Amish - which results in substantial underreporting of child abuse. This fact that child abuse in these communities is high is well known to social workers, but it does not feature in official statistics.
But even if we discount the effects of reporting, the relationship between percent of ethnic minorities and abuse report rates was still pretty strong. This fact was confirmed by social workers with whom I worked on this project and who had direct experience of the situation. Their explanation was the pervasive culture of violence in these communities - by which they meant routine use of violence as the means of discipline e.g parents routinely slapping their children for minor misbehavior, which could easily escalate into major beatings. Another cited factor was the "cycle of violence" i.e. children who suffered abuse were likely to become abusers as adults.
I blame the culture of violence that thoroughly permeates the US culture.
Not only is violence glorified in the media, but also rewarded. Just think of the almost permanent state of war this country has been in since World War 2. Individualism and aggressiveness are highly rewarded at every echelon of society. Of course, the upper echelons do not have to engage in acts of violence themselves, they can send their goons to do the dirty work for them, but they are nonetheless the perpetrators. The underclasses, otoh, do the dirty work themselves, which puts them in the spotlight.
The culture of violence itself does not automatically lead to actual violence, of course. Japan is a good example - high on culture of violence but relatively low on actual violence. Another ingredient is needed to transform the culture of violence into actual violence. This ingredient is community cohesion. Multiple studies have demonstrated that stable and cohesive communities have lower delinquency rates than unstable, transient ones. The argument here is that stable and cohesive communities have informal norms and rules against delinquent behavior and members of these communities have stakes in conforming to these rules. In unstable, transient communities no such stakes exist, and members of such communities are more likely to engage in egoistic behavior that disregards everyone else.
As a result, stable and cohesive communities offer a much better resistance against the pervasive culture of violence than unstable ones. This is also the link between violence and neoliberalism - as neoliberal policies tend to undermine communities.
So while the issue of violence against children, and violence in general, has many factors - neoliberalism and capitalist aggression are among main of them.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."