More children dying from abusive head trauma at the hands of unemployed fathers, other male caretakers (Montgomery, Alabama)

Read this article carefully and it becomes quite clear why more children are dying. What is being seen is an increase in shaken baby syndrome (also known as abusive head trauma or blunt force head trauma). Why? Well, a bad economy is partly to blame. And why is a bad economy to blame? Same story, but it's kind of buried here. Unemployed fathers and other male caretakers (boyfriends and stepdads) who severely abuse--and sometimes kill--the children because they can't deal with the "frustration" of an infant's crying and all.

We need to put the daddies to work and let the moms take care of their children. That's the most obvious solution to this. Too many male caretakers--either for reasons of nature or nurture--just can't handle child care.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20100424/NEWS01/4240330/Violence-against-children-worries-officials

Violence against children worries officials
By Scott Johnson • sjohnson3@gannett.com • April 24, 2010

Carol Oliver of Detroit said her family still is struggling to cope after her 2-year-old grandson, Jaylin Williams, was killed in Montgomery in 2005.

"He had a beautiful smile. Everyone talked about his smile and his cheeks," said Oliver, who attended a vigil for homicide victims in Montgomery on Friday. She and her family wore shirts commemorating his life and lit a candle in his memory.

Jaylin died at the hands of his father, who is serving life in prison.

This year in Montgomery, there already have been two homicides of children 2 years old or younger.

Between Oct. 1, 2008, and Sept. 30, 2009, there were 30 homicides of children younger than 18 in Alabama, according to numbers from the state Department of Forensic Science. Abusive head trauma was the cause of death in four of those cases.

Since Oct. 1, there have been four homicides caused by abusive head trauma, meaning there have been as many in slightly more than six months as there were in the preceding year. There were just two cases of abusive head trauma leading to death the year before that.

It is too soon to say definitively that those numbers indicate a trend, said Dr. Kenneth Snell, the state's chief medical examiner.

The numbers are, however, a bad sign, he said.

"It has been a bad year. If we keep on the trend, it will be a real bad year," Snell said.

Some believe the economy could be to blame. Richard Burleson, director of the Alabama Child Death Review System, agreed.

"I'm aware that there is a very real concern nationwide that cases of abuse and neglect have increased with the downturn in the economy," he said.

Most recently in Montgomery, 1-year-old Lia Hall was killed by blunt force trauma to the head. Her stepfather, Geoffrey Mendenall, has been charged with capital murder.

Jonathan Katan was charged with capital murder in the death of his son, Preston, 2, who was found unresponsive in his bed Feb. 16. The cause of death was blunt force head trauma.

The manner of death for blunt force head trauma is homicide, Burleson said, and falls into one of the categories the Alabama Child Death Review System investigates.

The system reviews all non-medical, unexplained or unexpected deaths, to anyone younger than 18 in the state, Burleson said, but the review does not take place until everything with the pending case is finalized.

According to statistics from the Child Death Review System, in Montgomery County 18 cases reviewed by the local team between 2001 and 2007 were determined to be due to child abuse or neglect. In Autauga, Chilton and Elmore counties, child abuse or neglect was cited in five cases.

Abusive head trauma, blunt force head trauma and shaken baby syndrome are all synonymous, said Melissa Nelson, head of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Shaken Baby Prevention Program.

Nelson said she has noticed an increase in cases of abusive head trauma and, like others, believes it has been caused by the economic downturn.

More men are out of work and are being left in the unfamiliar position of caring for a young child, she said. "They get frustrated. They don't know what to do," Nelson said.

According to the National Center for Child Death Review, major risk factors for child abuse and neglect include: children younger than 5; parents or caregivers younger than 30; low-income or single-parent families experiencing major stress; children with emotional or health problems; lack of suitable child care; substance abuse among caregivers; and unrealistic expectations of child development or behavior.

But, Burleson said, child abuse or neglect can happen to any family; "risk factors are certainly not exclusive," he said.

Burleson said infants are most susceptible to head trauma because their brain and neck muscles are not fully developed, causing the head to flail.

"Our brains are not designed to sustain that kind of motion," he said. "The most common (cause of brain trauma) is running them into the wall or hitting their head on the crib."

Most cases are triggered when a baby won't stop crying, said Kelly Parris-Barnes, executive director of the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention. The most common perpetrators in abusive head trauma cases are boyfriends and fathers, Parris-Barnes said.

Oliver said Jaylin's father, James Williams, had recently lost his job and was under a lot of stress when he killed his son.

Williams is serving life in prison and will be eligible for parole in five years.

Jaylin's death has been difficult for the entire family, Oliver said.

"Last week, his older sister wrote a paper for her English class. She expressed some hurt in there that we had no clue what she was feeling," Oliver said.

Jaylin died May 28, one day before that same sister's 10th birthday.

Jaylin's mother and twin brother both have received grief counseling.

Parents who lose children to homicide face unique problems, said Joyce Miller, a licensed counselor with Victims of Crime and Leniency, a victims advocacy group.

The parents will feel guilty even if they had nothing to do with their child's death, Miller said.

At Friday night's vigil, sponsored by V.O.C.A.L., Angel House and the Alabama Crime Victims Compensation Commission, Jaylin's mother struggled to remain composed as she held a candle in his memory.

"Anytime it's a child, the parents feel more responsible for basically failure to protect even though there was nothing they could do to prevent it," Miller said.

The parents generally do not go through the usual cycles of grief but instead experience a range of feelings, Miller said.

"They are constantly jerked back and forth from one emotion to another," she said.

For a while, parents simply cannot accept that their child is dead, Miller said. They walk into the child's room again and again and expect to see their son or daughter, she said.

"In your head, you know it because you've seen it, but it's a long time before the heart accepts it," Miller said.

Miriam Shehane, co-founder of V.O.C.A.L., lost her own daughter, Quenette, to homicide in 1976.
Losing a child is always tragic, but losing one to homicide is even more devastating, she said.
"You always ask the question why, and you have to accept that fact that you will never get an answer," Shehane said.

Staff writer Lauren Bowar contributed to this report.