The occurrence of crime with children as the victims causes different long-term effects. The criminal justice system handles such offenses by offering a wide scope of penalties and imprisonment terms, which depend on several aspects (Bunting, 2014). For instance, they consider the age of the victims, criminal records of the perpetrator, and the magnitude of the caused harm. This essay discusses three articles about children as victims of maltreatment, statutory rape, kidnapping, and attack by a sibling.
Nearly 20% of the cases of sexual abuse entail the statutory rape of a minor or attempted rape where girls are the major victims (about 85%) (Bunting, 2014). Most of the reported cases of the statutory rape of a minor occur in the age of between 14 and 17 years. The common cases of maltreatment include wounding, neglect, severe bodily harm, cruelty, and other brutal crimes. Child maltreatment cases are more often reported against boys. The affirmation in the article that only a few victims involving the statutory rape of a minor (about 20%) and maltreatment (approximately 25%) are identified has stern insinuations for the effortlessness of the victims to find justice. In most cases of maltreatment, sentencing entails probation or a short incarceration term. In a case involving the statutory rape of minor or grievous maltreatment, the offender could be sentenced to a long prison term or life imprisonment.
Most of the reported cases of kidnapping of children entail forced labor with little or no payment at all, threats of physical assault, sexual abuse, and psychological torture. In 2000, Congress reacted to this international problem by enacting the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) (Reese, 2015). Kidnappers occur in dissimilar forms as they could encompass strangers or family members that employ criminal groups. It is evident that different forms of perpetrators are stimulated by a broad variety of goals such as monetary gains. The criminal justice system handles cases of kidnapping by punishing the offenders by incarceration for any suitable number of years. In cases where the killing of the victim occurs, the punishment given to the criminals is the death penalty or life imprisonment.
Cases of attack by a sibling (particularly sexual attack) have a high likelihood of being reported to the law enforcement officers by their custodial parents or the school. Such instances ought to reach a convincing threshold to be seriously addressed by the criminal justice system as compared to sexual abuse by adults (Collin-Vézina et al., 2014). This results in an enhanced possibility of such cases being found unsubstantiated upon investigation and referred to the parents to resolve them. Since just a small fraction of cases of attack by a sibling are officially filed through law enforcement, there is a possibility of the impact of sibling sexual attack in the society being underrated. Some instances are cleared by the police while the majority entails counseling by the parents or other family members. Therefore, cases of attack by a sibling require considerable focus in studies and governmental approaches to ensure that their occurrence is successfully handled.
The long-term impacts of the children affected by cases of statutory rape of a minor and attack by a sibling entail sentiments of being stigmatized, resentment, shame, dishonor, culpability, and sexual dysfunction. On the contrary, the long-term effects of maltreatment and kidnapping to children encompass the fear of strangers and family members apart from parents. All the crimes listed above have numerous similar long-term effects on the affected children. These include psychological impairment, drug abuse, poor self-worth, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and in worst cases suicide (Bunting, 2014). While researching each crime, I was surprised to learn that kidnapping of a child could be orchestrated by a family member for monetary gains. Family members ought to care for one another, and it is shocking that others could cause harm to the innocent children that they ought to protect.
References
Bunting, L. (2014). Invisible victims: Recorded crime and children in the UK. Child Abuse Review, 23(3), 200-213.
Collin-Vézina, D., Fast, E., Hélie, S., Cyr, M., Pelletier, S., & Fallon, B. (2014). Young offender sexual abuse cases under protection investigation: Are sibling cases any different? Child Welfare, 93(4), 91-108.
Reese, B. (2015). Holding on to clarity: Reconciling the Federal Kidnapping Statute with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Mich. L. Rev., 114, 275-308.