Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, crosses ethnic and cultural lines, and is present within all religions and at all levels of education (“Background on Child Abuse"). Child abuse can occur for multiple reasons. In particular, one reason is stress from caring for children, especially if the child has a disability, special needs, or particularly difficult behavior. Also, a lack of resources necessary to properly care for a child can trigger child neglect. The difficulty of controlling their anger (which can be due to physical or mental health problems like depression and anxiety, or alcohol or drug abuse) is even more difficult to parents so child neglect becomes an unintentional option. Isolation from a family or community and personal problems like marital conflict, unemployment, or financial difficulties, which bring even more stress to any situation. This can add levels to how maltreatment is inflicted on a child (“Background on Child Abuse"). From prior knowledge more teens have become parents and have a lack of maturity they lack the amount of care a child actually needs financially and emotionally. According to an article on child maltreatment this means that child neglect and abuse have numerous causes. These causes can come from the parent’s frustration and lack of communication with someone who can help.
Although this first juvenile court was founded in 1899, early juvenile courts were not focused on protecting maltreated children as much as they were concerned with keeping the streets free of poor and vagrant children ("Child Maltreatment”). Furthermore, child maltreatment during that time wasn’t a big issue. The main focus was on getting youth who may have been poor and vagrant because of child maltreatment, off the streets. There are approximately one million substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect in the United States. States each year have millions of more reported cases. Child maltreatment is not unique to certain nations or cultures. It appears that children have always been abused and neglected (Child Maltreatment, 2003). According to the NACC (National Association of Counsel for Children) there were many different religions and countries that had laws based on child maltreatment.
Supposedly, the case of a child named Mary Ellen in 1874 was misunderstood, but it was an important situation that helped lead us to today’s system. In 1874, 10 year old Mary Ellen was removed from her home for cruelty and provided protection by the New York Court system. The case is connected to the founding of the New York Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which gave rise to the founding of similar societies. After this multiple historical events occurred. These events participated in the uprising of our current system that makes child neglect and abuse illegal.