Talk:child abuse

RFD

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child abuse

Abuse of a child. Assuming the definition of child neglect is accurate, I've decided not to RFD that as well for the time being. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:27, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Keep. There's a Wikipedia article on this subject, which is sort of my personal litmus test. It's a discrete concept in a way that, say, "tax form" or "religious tract" aren't. Child abuse is viewed as a significant sociological ill and there have been many books and studies written about it. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 03:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

That's a poor litmus test even by your own personal standards as to what ought to be kept; we agree that tax form is unworthy of an entry here but it does have a Wikipedia article. Similarly, many things have been written about which are not worthy of an entry based on lexicographical standards alone. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:04, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I never suggested it was a definitive test. It's a way to loosely gauge whether multi-word constructions are SOP or worthy of definition. The existence of a Wikipedia article, at a minimum, suggests that the thing in question may be more complicated than simply word A + word B.

This gets plenty of hits on OneLook. It's evidently something other dictionaries have deemed worthy of inclusion. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 05:28, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an entry for list of cats. That's why using Wikipedia as a definitive source for entry titles is such as bad idea. Renard Migrant (talk) 14:18, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Another thought thought that just occurred to me is that this term has a narrow meaning. It could conceivably refer to the abuse of one child by another, or abuse inflicted on a person by their child, but it refers strictly to abuse committed against children by adults or minors in a position to be responsible for a younger child (e.g. teen parents, babysitters, older siblings). -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 02:38, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem is not that we have child abuse listed, but that the definition is not precise enough. It simply says mistreatment, but child abuse is usually considered something more severe than mere mistreatment - it is something that can cause long-lasting or permanent damage to the child.121.72.243.109 06:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

We could always go the route of providing some legal- or regulatory-type definitions, but we would be faced with the elastic and protean nature and vast number of such definitions. This is particularly true as the crime is in the jurisdiction of the components of federally organized nations, such as US, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain, not to mention the numerous smaller Anglophone nations. DCDuring TALK 16:40, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Keep and revise. Many state statutes do not actually use the phrase "child abuse", but use a variation, such as "willful abuse upon a child" or "welfare of children: abuse and neglect". An example of a state that does specify "child abuse" is Colorado, for which the law states:

COLO. REV. STAT. §18-6-401 (2014). Child abuse

(1)(a) A person commits child abuse if such person causes an injury to a child's life or health, or permits a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation that poses a threat of injury to the child's life or health, or engages in a continued pattern of conduct that results in malnourishment, lack of proper medical care, cruel punishment, mistreatment, or an accumulation of injuries that ultimately results in the death of a child or serious bodily injury to a child.

I think a legalistic definition is appropriate for this term. bd2412 T 17:13, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

This focuses much of the ambiguity in the term mistreatment, though malnutrition and proper are also quite fuzzy. The ambiguity, which is part of actual normal and legal usage, I think, remains. DCDuring TALK 19:03, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

That's not particularly surprising, though. Our own definition of mistreatment is "improper treatment; abuse", which is also ambiguous. I think in this particular definition, it means "mistreatment... that ultimately results in the death of a child or serious bodily injury to a child". bd2412 T 18:02, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Is that a legal definition? I In everyday use in current US culture, it would not require such drastic physical consequences, rather than serious pain and perhaps psychological damage. DCDuring TALK 18:44, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

It's a definition for purposes of prosecution as a crime in Colorado. bd2412 T 19:33, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. It means more than the sum of its parts. And it's in the OED. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:55, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Yep, keep. Donnanz (talk) 16:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

• Keep using the lemming heuristic: in oxforddictionaries.com[1], Collins[2], and Macmillan[3]. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Kept. At this point, there is no reasonable possibility that there will be a consensus to delete this entry. Of course, the entry itself may be improved. bd2412 T 14:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)