After completing your first course project assignment, you should have a solid grasp of the crime you will explore and what the criminal justice response to this crime has been. It is now time to engage in some critical thinking about how we can seek to explain this crime. Much of what we have been discussing these past few weeks includes theories that seek to explain crime. For this week's assignment, complete the following: Identify two criminological theories that you believe will explain the crime you selected. Discuss (critically) how these theories can apply to the crime you selected. This assignment should be at least 2-3 pages in length. Your paper should reference at least five scholarly sources that discuss a criminological theory, using APA format. Students should seek out peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles from LIRN to complete this assignment. Abstract In this paper, The two criminological theories which I will be using to explain child abuse and neglect is the classical criminological theory and the positivist theory. I will discuss how both of these theories can be applied to this particular crime. Criminological Theories There are numerous criminological theories. For this assignment I will work with classical criminological theory and the positivist theory (Eglin, 1992). According to the positivist theory, people commit crimes because they lack the moral intelligence to stop them from making decisions that would lead to criminal actions. This theory asserts that people do not just make decisions to commit crimes but that there are internal forces that contribute to their wayward criminal behavior. These factors may include the social acceptability of the person, the moral values as well as the intelligence of the person. The person lacks the internal drive to make him obey the laws (Beirne,1987). The classical criminological theory asserts people think critically before they commit a crime. Their thinking usually weighs the consequences of the action that one intends to commit. The thinking guides the people before making the decision to commit the crimes and therefore they are usually aware of what is likely to happen to them after the criminal action they intend to engage in. According to this theory, people make the decisions to commit crimes and are also aware of the consequences (Barak,1998). Positivist theory and its application to the crime Positivist theory can be applied to the child abuse crime from various perspectives. To begin with, the people who abuse children are very dear to them. These include babysitters, parents as well as close relatives. According to this theory, they therefore make the decision to abuse the child due to lack of moral intelligence. This is because if the person abusing the child had some morals, then the morals would guide him or her not to abuse the child but to take care of the child as is morally accepted. For instance, looking at Casey Anthony case, the mother might hav.

1. After completing your first course project assignment, you
should have a solid grasp of the crime you will explore and
what the criminal justice response to this crime has been. It is
now time to engage in some critical thinking about how we can
seek to explain this crime.
Much of what we have been discussing these past few weeks
includes theories that seek to explain crime. For this week's
assignment, complete the following:
Identify two criminological theories that you believe will
explain the crime you selected.
Discuss (critically) how these theories can apply to the crime
you selected.
This assignment should be at least 2-3 pages in length.
Your paper should reference at least five scholarly sources that
discuss a criminological theory, using APA format. Students
should seek out peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles from
LIRN to complete this assignment.
Abstract
In this paper, The two criminological theories which I will be
using to explain child abuse and neglect is the classical
criminological theory and the positivist theory. I will discuss
how both of these theories can be applied to this particular
crime.
Criminological Theories
There are numerous criminological theories. For this assignment
I will work with classical criminological theory and the
positivist theory (Eglin, 1992).
According to the positivist theory, people commit crimes
because they lack the moral intelligence to stop them from
making decisions that would lead to criminal actions. This
theory asserts that people do not just make decisions to commit
crimes but that there are internal forces that contribute to their
wayward criminal behavior. These factors may include the
social acceptability of the person, the moral values as well as

2. the intelligence of the person. The person lacks the internal
drive to make him obey the laws (Beirne,1987).
The classical criminological theory asserts people think
critically before they commit a crime. Their thinking usually
weighs the consequences of the action that one intends to
commit. The thinking guides the people before making the
decision to commit the crimes and therefore they are usually
aware of what is likely to happen to them after the criminal
action they intend to engage in. According to this theory, people
make the decisions to commit crimes and are also aware of the
consequences (Barak,1998).
Positivist theory and its application to the crime
Positivist theory can be applied to the child abuse crime from
various perspectives. To begin with, the people who abuse
children are very dear to them. These include babysitters,
parents as well as close relatives. According to this theory, they
therefore make the decision to abuse the child due to lack of
moral intelligence. This is because if the person abusing the
child had some morals, then the morals would guide him or her
not to abuse the child but to take care of the child as is morally
accepted. For instance, looking at Casey Anthony case, the
mother might have murdered her child due to lack of moral
values as well as due to lack of intelligence to guide her make
the right decisions of obeying the laws (Beirne,1987).
From the baby sitters point of view, most of them perceive
themselves a socially unacceptable may be due to their social
economic status. These baby sitters may chose to abuse the
child as a result of lack of the social acceptability. The
babysitters usually lack the intelligence to help them make the
choices to obey the laws.
Classical theory and its application to the crime
The classical criminological theory can be used to explain
this child abuse crime. To begin with, according to this theory
one makes the decision to commit the crime and clearly knows
the consequences of the crime he or she commits (Larry,2003).

3. Looking at the example of the child abuse case given, that
is, the case of the 12-year old girl, whose father and step mother
colluded to abuse her, it is clear that these parents made this
conscious decision to abuse the girl this can be justified by their
actions .The parents colluded to decide to lock the girl in her
bedroom and beat her as well as starving her. These are
conscious actions that the parents’ made. According to the
classical theory, the parents made the decision to abuse the girl.
I believe classical criminological theory can explain the
child abuse crime because of the actions that the parents took to
abuse the girl. These parents were aware of the consequences of
their abusive actions prior to making their decision. This is
what classical theory asserts. The parents knew the likely
consequence of their actions and I believe that is why they did
lock the girl in her bedroom to avoid publicity of their evil
actions. In addition, the parents must have been aware that if
their actions got to the authority they will be charged with a
criminal action and this is probably why they did not deny the
charges (Hirschi, 1990).
References
Barak, G. (1998). Integrative criminology. Aldershot
Brookfield: Ashgate.
Beirne, P. (1987). Adolphe Quetelet and the Origins of
Positivist Criminology. American Journal of Sociology , 1140–
1169.
Eglin, P. (1992). A Sociology of Crime . London: Routledge.
Hirschi, T. (1990). A General Theory of Crime. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Larry, J. (2003). Criminology . Thomson: Wadsworth.

4. Week 2 Course Project
Due: July 27, 2014
Student: Neelam Barbour
Course: CCJ 5019
Professor: Brad Anders
Abstract
This paper will be about a particular crime and how the criminal
justice system has responded towards it. The topic of crime
will be child abuse and neglect. This paper will have present
relevant statistics on child abuse and neglect.
Child abuse and neglect has been an issue for years and years,
but yet we are still not able to solve the problem. There are
children who are physically, emotionally, and sexually abused,
along with being neglected. These innocent children do not

5. deserve such treatment. The parents might not have ever wanted
children to begin with. Their children might be smarter than
they were, or they never thought of the work it takes to care for
child. The parents might be alcoholics or drug users and they
take out their frustration on their innocent children. The parents
or guardians might have been sexually or physically abused
when they were kids and this is all they know. As you can see,
my paper will be on all aspects of abuse and neglect. There will
be many excuses some will use and unfortunately, that’s all it
is, an excuse. Too many children are dying or disappearing
because the parents cannot hack it. We need to find ways to
protect abused and neglected children. Everyone needs to be
aware of the signs, symptoms, and how the child may act.
Children deserve to be able to live free and happy, but this is
not always the case. Many children are abused in some fashion,
whether it’s physical, emotional, and sexual also being
neglected in some way. The person who abuses the child is
sometimes very near and dear, as in a parent, a family member,
teacher, babysitter, boy/girlfriend and maybe a stranger too. My
paper will be on three parts of abuse: physical, emotional, and
sexual. Neglect of a child will also be explained. I will define
all reasons and the signs and symptoms to look for. Another
section will be on how you report the person doing the abuse
and also how to handle when a child gets the courage to let
someone know. The last part will be on how you can help
prevent child abuse in the future. Child abuse should not be
taken lightly. As you read on you will understand why and how
this occurs. The abuse may be “a slap, a harsh comment, stony
silence, or not knowing if there will be dinner on the table”
(Smith & Segal, 2014) either way it’s harmful for the child.
According to the statistics in 2012, there were over 500,000
reports of neglect which is over "78.3%, 183% is physical
abuse, 9.3% is sexual abuse, and 2.3% is medical
neglect"(National Child Abuse Statistics). All of these are
collected from 2012. In California in 2012 "76,026 children
were abused, 65,900 are from neglect, 7,424 children suffered

6. from physical abuse, 4,240 suffered from sexual abuse, making
a total of 91,574 children maltreated in total" (Child Abuse
Facts). These numbers are entirely too high for young, innocent
children who do not have a say so or the power to make
anything stop.
With the criminal justice system, it seems towards the adults
who are abusing these children they are lenient. The parents or
caregivers say its not their fault or someone else did it. When
the law enforcement does their investigations, they are going by
what they are told and if there are any witnesses on the matter.
It would depend on whether the child is alive, has marks, or
died while in the care of the parents due to suspicious
activities. An example I would use is the Casey Anthony case.
Clearly she murdered her own child but due to evidence and
what the jury had to take into consideration. For them, there
was no solid evidence linking her to the crime but it ended with
an innocent little girl dying and she had no control. The
Criminal Justice system needs to be more detailed and specific.
If they need to remove the child or children from the home for a
long amount of time so they can make sure they are safe, so be
it.
An actual incident, which occurred this year, was with a 12-
year-old girl. A couple from Queens has been charged not only
from beating her but also starving here for over a year. The girl
weighed only 58 pounds. "Her father and stepmother locked her
in her bedroom without food or water for extended periods and
forced her to take beatings in cold showers, according to a news
release from the office of the Queens district attorney, Richard
A. Brown" (Southall & Rosen, 2014). Between the times of
December 2012 until July 2013, she was kicked, had a baseball
bat hit to her, rolling pin, and a broken metal broom.ne medical
personnel arrived, she was covered in her own blood, the metal
handle went right thru her tendons to her left wrist, which
meant she was going to require surgery. The girl said she never
said anything because she was afraid her brothers and sisters
would be taken away and she did not want that. The authorities

7. had to jump into this otherwise this girl next event would have
ended in her tragic death. "Her father, Rajesh Ranot, 46, and
stepmother, Sheetal Ranot, 31, were charged with assault and
child endangerment. Mr. Ranot was also charged with unlawful
imprisonment" (Southall & Rosen, 2014). Rajesh had a bail of
$25,000 and Sheetal was $60,000.
To me this is an example of how the criminal justice system
should have them both the same and a higher bail for each.
This is just one example of many, many other reports and events
of child abuse and neglect. These type of people she be
punished with the same affection they chose to show their
children. This can show the parents what it feels like to be in
the shoes of the child. This little girl was lucky she was alive
but if the proper authorities did not intervene, we would have
seen a picture of this 12-year-old, dead by her parents. She was
lucky but there are many we have not been able to help out.
In conclusion, we can clearly see child abuse and neglect is a
problem, it has been and still is. The criminal justice system
needs to lay down the hammer and be more strict and harsh. I
feel the present way the system works is not right. If they do
not have enough evidence, proof or witness what happens? We
send the abused right back to the abuser and they become more
careful on how they treat them. By this I mean they begin to
know how and where to hit which leaves no mark, and might
actually threaten them more. It is a sad world out there.
References
Child Abuse Facts. (n.d.). Safe Horizon. Retrieved from
http://www.safehorizon.org/index/what-we-do-2/child-abuse--
incest-55.html
Child Abuse & Neglect. (n.d.). Child Welfare Information
Gateway. Retrieved from
https://www.childwelfare.gov/can/overview
Definitions of Abuse. (n.d.). The center for the prevention of
child abuse. Retrieved from

8. http://www.thecpca.com/about/definitions-of-abuse
Hess, K.M., & Orthmann, C.M. (2010). Juvenile justice (5th
Ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning/Wadsworth.
How We Do It. (2014). My Stuff Bags Foundation New
Beginnings for Children in Crisis Who We Serve Comments.
Retrieved from http://www.mystuffbags.org/how-we-do-it/who-
we-serve/?gclid=CLOB6p7dm74CFZNhfgodEhkAcQ
National Child Abuse Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics
Orthmann, C.H., &Hess, K.M. (2013). Criminal investigation
(10th Ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
“Volunteer Your Time to Change a Child’s Life” About us-
National CASA. N.p., n.d. Retrieved from,
http://www.casaforchildren.org/site/c.mtJSJ7MPIsE/b.5301303/
k.6FB1/About_Us_CASA_for_Children.htm
Smith, M., & Segal, J (2014, February 1). Child Abuse &
Neglect: Recognizing, Preventing and Reporting Child Abuse.
Help Guide. Retrieved from Child Abuse & Neglect:
Recognizing, Preventing and Reporting Child Abuse
Southall, A., & Rosen, K. (2014, August 5). Queens Couple Are
Charged in Severe Abuse of Daughter. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/nyregion/queens-couple-
are-charged-in-severe-abuse-of-daughter.html?_r=0