From infancy onward, children are in danger from many sources, including parental and sibling abuse, drug abuse and mental illness in the home, parental neglect, and poverty. Removing an at-risk child from a troubled environment brings on a host of new concerns and is not always a panacea. Endangered Children: Homicide, and Other Crimes, Second Edition focuses on the myriad threats facing children and provides insight into possible solutions.
Beginning with a history of child abuse, the book explores this phenomenon as presented in literature and in other cultural references. It then provides sociobiological and cross-cultural perspectives on neonaticide. It examines motives for abuse and explores how shame and denial of pregnancy can lead to the killing of an infant within moments of its birth.
The book examines legal ramifications to neonaticide in the U.S. and abroad, including psychological and psychiatric defenses. Additional chapters focus on shaken baby syndrome and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and the book includes a new chapter on postpartum depression. The authors include profiles of several notorious cases, including Susan Smith and Andrea Yates. They also discuss issues related to abortion and euthanasia, and conclude by suggesting preventive measures to child abuse and therapeutic rehabilitation.
Exploring a social tragedy from psychological, sociological, and criminological perspectives, the authors attempt to answer the many questions that arise from these crimes against our most vulnerable, offering readers a thought-provoking resource that is sure to encourage further research and inquiry.
Lita Linzer Schwartz, Ph.D., is a graduate of Vassar College, Temple University, and Bryn Mawr College, and is Distinguished Professor Emerita of The Pennsylvania State University's Abington College (née Ogontz Campus). She also holds a diplomate in forensic psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. She has received three awards from Penn State: Outstanding Teacher from the College of Education Alumni (1981-1982), Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University (1982), and Career Achievement award from the College of Education (1992). Dr. Schwartz is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Forensic Psychologists as well as a member of the International Council of Psychologists and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. In addition to teaching, she is actively involved in a number of writing projects on topics as varied as adoptive and surrogate parenting, cults and sects, media violence and its impact, gifted children, and female artists and photographers.
Natalie Isser, Ph.D.
, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and is Professor Emerita of The Pennsylvania State University's Abington College. She is a member of the American Historical Association, The Western Society for the Study of French History, and the Delaware Valley Association of Modern European Historians. In addition to the books and articles coauthored with Dr. Schwartz, she has written on French anti-Semitism, human rights, and French public opinion and diplomacy during the Second Empire. She teaches part time and has continued research on a variety of topics such as American melodrama, movies, and history; and the social and cultural roots of American populism.
