Legal Backlash: the Expanding Liabilty of Women Who Fail to Protect Their Childrem from Their Male Counter Parts Abuse

Although child abuse has existed for centuries in the United States, an increase in the number of reported incidents in recent years has spurred legislative and judicial response, primarily in the form of failure-to protect laws.2 Failure-to-protect laws impose liability upon parents, who have a duty to protect their child, when they fail to prevent abuse of the child at the hands of a known offender.3 Child abuse statutes generally appear in two forms: commission statutes,4 which are used to convict those who actually inflict abuse (active abusers), and omission statutes,S which criminalize the passive conduct of those who expose a child to a risk of maltreatment or fail to protect or care for a child when they have an affirmative duty to do so (passive perpetrators).6 A court\u27s inquiry when applying an omission statute focuses on whether the passive perpetrator had notice of ongoing abuse and allowed the abuse to continue. A passive perpetrator\u27s liability for child abuse or homicide, if the abuse is the direct cause of the child\u27s death, is predicated upon a finding of several factors: (1) a legal duty to protect the child; 7 (2) actual or constructive notice of the foreseeability of abuse; (3) the child\u27s exposure to abuse; and (4) failure to prevent such abuse. Parents can fulfill their legal duty to protect their children in the face of abuse by reporting the abuse to authorities, removing the child from the abusive situation, or ejecting the abuser from the child\u27s home. Statutes which criminalize passive conduct aim to protect children\u27s best interests by compelling parents to remove their children from abusive environments