Child Maltreatment Law: Foundations in Science, Practice, and Policy

PLEASE NOTE: A new edition will be out summer 2024. Until then, the current edition is available in looseleaf and ebook format.

This casebook analyzes actions and decisions that have occurred in actual child maltreatment cases. Levesque uses closely edited cases and explanatory notes to help readers understand each case's significance and relationship to other litigation. Levesque also references cases that use social science evidence to evaluate how society, researchers, and the law conceptualize and respond to child maltreatment.

Part I of Child Maltreatment Law explores how the legal system defines what constitutes the major forms of maltreatment deemed worthy of state intervention. Part II details the nature of families assumed problematic and how the state directly intervenes in families to address maltreatment conditions. Part III addresses the challenges faced by legal reform efforts to stop and prevent child maltreatment. The appendices assist those unfamiliar with legal cases, legal terminology, the legal system, and the place of social sciences in law. Together, the materials provide a firm foundation for understanding key social science findings, policy directions, and practices in child maltreatment law.

"This is a successful casebook project that should appeal to a wide audience. No law library should be without a couple...[the] book is well-written and the cases closely edited. It successfully combines key social science findings with law and policy. I hope that my colleagues in social work departments will use this casebook in courses dealing with child abuse. This is a law school casebook that is user-friendly enough to be used in graduate and undergraduate courses." -- Bimonthly Review of Law Books, January/February 2003