Texas A&M International University

CRIJ 3315

The Nature of Child Maltreatment

Three semester hours (FL-Even)

To inform students about the complex nature of child abuse and the government policy reactions to this problem. Child abuse is studied from five perspectives: (1) history of child welfare policies; (2) the “medical discovery of child abuse”; (3) state and federal legislation; (4) comparisons of social work and criminal justice policies; and (5) variations on the theme (neglect, sexual abuse, institutional abuse, contributing to delinquency, etc.). Prerequisite for CRIJ majors: Successful completion of the lower-level CRIJ courses (or equivalent courses) required for the CRIJ major. Prerequisite for non-CRIJ majors: Twelve hours of social sciences outside of CRIJ.