Wisconsin State Journal - June 1, 2011
Pastor’s brother pleads guilty to child abuse for corporal punishment of kids
by ED TRELEVEN
The brother of a Black Earth church pastor who advocated corporal punishment for children of church members pleaded guilty Wednesday to child abuse and causing mental harm to a child.
A plea agreement would have asked Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah O’Brien to place John R. Caminiti, 45, on probation for three years with no jail time, but O’Brien instead ordered a pre-sentence investigation to be conducted by the state Department of Corrections. She will set sentencing for a later date.
O’Brien said she wasn’t necessarily rejecting the sentencing recommendation, but instead wanted more information so she could make a better-informed decision.
Caminiti is the brother of Phil Caminiti, the pastor of Aleitheia Bible Church in Black Earth. The church, which holds its services in private homes, advocates the use of corporal punishment using such things as wooden dowels and wooden spoons to discipline children, following the principle of “spare the rod and spoil the child.”
John Caminiti pleaded guilty to causing mental harm to a child, admitting to “shunning” a teenage son by confining him to his bedroom for four weeks for having feelings that the boy described as pressure and fear, according to a criminal complaint. The boy said he had been told not to have feelings, the complaint states.
During the time he was confined to his room, the complaint states, the boy was not allowed to go downstairs or do school work, and meals were brought to him in his room. The boy was ordinarily home-schooled.
Caminiti also pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse, for using dowels on two of his other children when they were disobedient.
In all, eight people associated with Aleitheia Bible Church have been charged with child abuse for their use of corporal punishment on their own children and others. Phil Caminiti, 54, faces eight counts of conspiracy to commit child abuse. His son and daughter-in-law, Matthew and Alina Caminiti, also face several child abuse charges.
Church members Timothy and Maria Stephenson and Timothy and Andrew Wick are also charged with child abuse.
This article was found at:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/article_bd965540-8c89-11e0-aa17-001cc4c03286.html
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Preaching Virtue of Spanking, Even as Deaths Fuel Debate
ReplyDeleteBy ERIK ECKHOLM, NYT November 7, 2011
PLEASANTVILLE, Tenn. — After services at the Church at Cane Creek on a recent Sunday, a few dozen families held a potluck picnic and giggling children played pin the tail on the donkey.
The white-bearded preacher, Michael Pearl, who delivered his sermon in stained work pants, and his wife, Debi, mixed warmly with the families drawn to their evangelical ministry, including some of their own grandchildren.
The pastoral mood in the hills of Tennessee offered a stark contrast to the storm raging around the country over the Pearls’ teachings on child discipline, which advocate systematic use of “the rod” to teach toddlers to submit to authority. The methods, seen as common sense by some grateful parents and as horrific by others, are modeled, Mr. Pearl is fond of saying, on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”
Debate over the Pearls’ teachings, first seen on Christian Web sites, gained new intensity after the death of a third child, all allegedly at the hands of parents who kept the Pearls’ book, “To Train Up a Child,” in their homes. On Sept. 29, the parents were charged with homicide by abuse.
More than 670,000 copies of the Pearls’ self-published book are in circulation, and it is especially popular among Christian home-schoolers, who praise it in their magazines and on their Web sites. The Pearls provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months to discourage misbehavior and describe how to make use of implements for hitting on the arms, legs or back, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line that, Mr. Pearl notes, “can be rolled up and carried in your pocket.”
The furor in part reflects societal disagreements over corporal punishment, which conservative Christians say is called for in the Bible and which many Americans consider reasonable up to a point, even as many parents and pediatricians reject it. The issue flared recently when a video was posted online of a Texas judge whipping his daughter.
Mr. Pearl, 66, and Mrs. Pearl, 60, say that blaming their book for extreme abuse by a few unstable parents is preposterous and that they explicitly counsel against acting in anger or causing a bruise. They say that their methods, properly used, yield peace and happy teenagers.
“If you find a 12-step book in an alcoholic’s house, you wouldn’t blame the book,” Mr. Pearl said in an interview.
But he acknowledged that the methods are not right for out-of-control or severely overburdened parents.
In the latest case, Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Wash., were home-schooling their six children when they adopted a girl and a boy, ages 11 and 7, from Ethiopia in 2008. The two were seen by their new parents as rebellious, according to friends.
Late one night in May this year, the adopted girl, Hana, was found face down, naked and emaciated in the backyard; her death was caused by hypothermia and malnutrition, officials determined. According to the sheriff’s report, the parents had deprived her of food for days at a time and had made her sleep in a cold barn or a closet and shower outside with a hose. And they often whipped her, leaving marks on her legs. The mother had praised the Pearls’ book and given a copy to a friend, the sheriff’s report said. Hana had been beaten the day of her death, the report said, with the 15-inch plastic tube recommended by Mr. Pearl.
“It’s a good spanking instrument,” Mr. Pearl said in the interview. “It’s too light to cause damage to the muscle or the bone.” ...
read the full article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/us/deaths-put-focus-on-pastors-advocacy-of-spanking.html
Texas' top court suspends judge in beating video
ReplyDeleteBy CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press November 23, 2011
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court suspended a judge Tuesday whose beating of his then-teenage daughter in 2004 was viewed millions of times on the Internet.
Aransas County court-at-law Judge William Adams was suspended immediately with pay pending the outcome of the inquiry started earlier this month by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, according to an order signed Tuesday by the clerk of the state's highest court.
The order makes clear that while Adams agreed to the commission's recommended temporary suspension and waived the hearing and notice requirements, he does not admit "guilt, fault or wrongdoing" regarding the allegations. His attorney did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Adams' now 23-year-old daughter Hillary Adams uploaded the secretly-recorded 2004 video of her father beating her repeatedly with a belt for making illegal downloads from the internet.
William Adams has not sat on the bench since the video went viral. It has been viewed more than 6 million times on YouTube.
The public outcry over the video was so great that in a rare move the, State Commission on Judicial Conduct announced publicly Nov. 2 that it had opened an investigation. A statement from the commission then said that it had been flooded with calls, emails and faxes regarding the video and Adams.
William Adams appeared in court Monday for a day-long hearing regarding the custody of his 10-year-old daughter. His wife had sought a change in their joint custody agreement, and another judge imposed a temporary restraining order effectively keeping William Adams from being alone with his younger daughter until he reached a decision. An order was expected in that dispute Wednesday.
As Aransas County's top judge, William Adams has dealt with at least 349 family law cases in the past year alone, nearly 50 of which involved state caseworkers seeking determine whether parents were fit to raise their children. A visiting judge has been handling his caseload.
After reviewing the investigation conducted by local police, the Aransas County district attorney said too much time had passed to bring charges against William Adams.
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-top-court-suspends-judge-beating-video-043952738.html
Man accused of cruelly punishing teen at parents' request
ReplyDeleteThe Chino Hills man is arrested. He struck the boy 'approximately 12 times with a metal pole, which was about 1 inch in diameter, on the back of the legs, causing injuries,' officials say.
By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times
December 11, 2011
A man accused of striking a 15-year-old Irvine boy with a metal pole after the boy's parents asked him to discipline the youth on their behalf has been booked on suspicion of felony willful cruelty to a child, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.
According to investigators, the parents found a lighter in the boy's possession and suspected that he had been smoking. The boy, who was not identified because of his age, was taken to the home of Paul Kim, 39, of Chino Hills, who attended the same La Habra church the family attended. Authorities said other families had used Kim to discipline their children.
Kim reportedly questioned the boy about the lighter and suspected that the teen was lying to him. "After receiving permission from the victim's father to use corporal punishment, Kim struck the child approximately 12 times with a metal pole, which was about 1 inch in diameter, on the back of the legs, causing injuries," the department said Saturday in a prepared statement.
Authorities were notified Tuesday when a school official in Irvine noticed that the boy had severe bruising on the backs of his legs. The school official filed a suspected child abuse report with Child Protective Services, and officers with the Irvine Police Department interviewed the boy and his parents at their home.
Kim was later arrested by the Sheriff's Department's Crimes Against Children Detail. He was released Thursday on $100,000 bail.
The Sheriff's Department has asked that anyone with information about any similar acts by Kim call the Crimes Against Children Detail at (909) 387-3615.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-discipline-20111211,0,7612446.story
Why Spanking Does Not Work
ReplyDeleteA new analysis concludes that spanking fails to alter kids' behavior in the long term. What it does instead is amp up their aggression.
By BONNIE ROCHMAN |TIME | February 6, 2012
Want your kid to stop whatever dangerous/annoying/forbidden behavior he’s doing right now? Spanking will probably work — for now.
But be prepared for that same child to be more aggressive toward you and his siblings, his friends and his eventual spouse. Oh, and get ready for some other antisocial behaviors too.
A new analysis of two decades of research on the long-term effects of physical punishment in children concludes that spanking doesn’t work and can actually wreak havoc on kids’ long-term development, according to an article published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Studying physical punishment is difficult for researchers, who can’t randomly assign children to groups that are hit and those that aren’t. Instead, they follow children over many years, monitor how much they’re spanked, and then take measure of their aggression over time. “We find children who are physically punished get more aggressive over time and those who are not physically punished get less aggressive over time,” says Joan Durrant, the article’s lead author and a child clinical psychologist and professor of family social sciences at the University of Manitoba.
In fact, regardless of the age of the children or the size of the sample, none of more than 80 studies on the effects of physical punishment have succeeded in finding positive associations. “If someone were to hit us to change our behavior, it might harm our relationship with that person. We might feel resentful,” says Durrant. “It’s no different for children. It’s not a constructive thing to do.”
Children who are spanked may feel depressed and devalued, and their sense of self-worth can suffer. Harsh punishments can wind up backfiring because they can foster lying in children who are desperate to avoid being spanked. Later in life, physical punishment is linked to mental-health problems including depression, anxiety and drug and alcohol use. There’s neuroimaging evidence that physical punishment may alter parts of the brain involved in performance on IQ tests and up the likelihood of substance abuse. And there’s also early data that spanking could affect areas of the brain involved in emotion and stress regulation.
Yet, as I wrote last summer in a story about the first real-time study of parents spanking their children, some research has found that up to 90% of parents say they use corporal punishment:
Despite a battery of disciplinary techniques, including the infamous “time out,” redirection and the increasing emphasis on positive discipline (try substituting “hold the cup carefully” for “don’t spill your juice”), spanking and slapping are still pretty popular.
Moms and dads who spank do so because they believe it’s effective, and research actually shows that it is — in the short term. A child reaching for a tempting object will stop if he gets swatted. “It does work in the immediate moment, but beyond that, in most cases, it’s very ineffective,” says George Holden, the study’s author and a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University. “The most common long-term consequence is that children learn to use aggression.”
Case in point: one mother in the study hit her toddler after the toddler either hit or kicked the mother, admonishing, “This is to help you remember not to hit your mother.”
“The irony is just amazing,” says Holden.
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http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/06/why-spanking-doesnt-work
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ReplyDeleteIn some countries, spanking is not a choice. Durrant is currently living in Sweden, where she’s researching child-and-family policies and the evolution of that country’s law prohibiting physical discipline of children. In 1979, Sweden was the first country to pass such legislation; now 32 countries — including much of Europe, Costa Rica, Israel, Tunisia and Kenya — have a similar law.
Neither the U.S. nor Canada has gotten on board. “Whenever I mention the law, there is an assumption that this is government telling me how to raise my child,” says Durrant. “[But in Sweden] they see it as a way to make sure children get the best start possible in life.”
Parents who spank often do so by default. Many, particularly those who were hit themselves, find that spanking is the only disciplinary tactic in their toolbox. Doctors are in a position to change that by educating parents about the stages of normal child development, recommending alternative ways to discipline and referring interested parents to appropriate resources and parenting classes. In Sweden, for example, new parents are hooked up with support groups and given information about developmental stages.
As a result, parents understand their children aren’t being intentional obstructionists; it’s just par for the course. “When children see someone resolve conflict with aggression, they are more likely to learn that behavior,” says Durrant. “Two-year-olds are the most aggressive people in the world. They don’t understand the impact of their behavior, and they can’t inhibit themselves. So the more a child sees someone resolving conflict with aggression, the more aggressive they become.”
A young toddler who upends her cereal bowl on her head probably isn’t being ornery; she’s just curious to see what will happen. Durrant likes to use her son as an example. When he was 3, he dropped his dad’s toothbrush into the toilet. Another parent might have yelled, but Durrant’s academic background helped her realize that he was just experimenting: he dropped objects into water floating in sinks and bathtubs with nary a scolding; why not toilets too? “I explained what goes into toilets and then said, Do you think Daddy is going to want to put that toothbrush in his mouth now?” Message transmitted with no yelling.
P.S. Durrant’s son never dropped anything verboten into the toilet again.
http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/06/why-spanking-doesnt-work/?xid=newsletter-weekly
Childhood abuse may stunt growth of part of brain involved in emotions
ReplyDeleteAlok Jha, The Guardian UK February 13, 2012
Being sexually or emotionally abused as a child can affect the development of a part of the brain that controls memory and the regulation of emotions, a study suggests.
The results add to the growing body of evidence that childhood maltreatment or abuse raises the risk of mental illnesses such as depression, personality disorders and anxiety well into adulthood.
Martin Teicher of the department of psychiatry at Harvard University scanned the brains of almost 200 people who had been questioned about any instances of abuse or stress during childhood. He found that the volumes of three important areas of the hippocampus were reduced by up to 6.5% in people exposed to several instances of maltreatment – such as physical or verbal abuse from parents – in their early years.
"The exquisite vulnerability of the hippocampus to the ravages of stress is one of the key translational neuroscience discoveries of the 20th century," wrote Teicher on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Early clues of the relationship came when scientists found that raising stress hormones for extended periods in rats reduced the number of neurons in the hippocampal areas, a result that has since been replicated in many non-human primates.
Other work has shown that people with a history of abuse or maltreatment during childhood are twice as likely to have recurrent episodes of depression in adulthood. These individuals are also less likely to respond well to psychological or drug-based treatments.
In the new study, Teicher's team scanned the brains of 73 men and 120 women aged between 18 and 25. The volunteers filled in a standard questionnaire used by psychiatrists to assess the number of "adverse childhood experiences".
Overall, 46% of the group reported no exposure to childhood adversity and 16% reported three or more forms of maltreatment, the most common being physical and verbal abuse from parents. Other factors included corporal punishment, sexual abuse and witnessing domestic violence.
The sample did not include people on psychiatric medication or anyone who had been exposed to other stressful events such as near-drownings or car accidents.
Andrea Danese, a clinical lecturer in child and adolescent psychiatry at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, who was not involved in the study, said Teicher's results took scientists a step closer to understanding the complex relationship between childhood maltreatment and brain development. "The large sample size allows for reliable detection of even comparatively small effects of maltreatment on the brain, whereas the recruitment from the general population allows for a less biased interpretation of the study, which builds on previous research often carried out in psychiatric patients."
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ReplyDeleteThe high-resolution brain imaging analysis allowed Teicher to home in on minute areas of the hippocampus and explore the association between maltreatment and this brain region in finer detail than ever before. "This is important because not all areas in the hippocampus are equally sensitive to the effect of stress mediators, such as cortisol and inflammatory biomarkers," said Danese. "Thus, the authors took advantage of this gradient to indirectly test the mechanisms through which childhood maltreatment could affect the brain."
One limitation of the study might be that it required the volunteers to recall their childhood experiences, added Danese. "The findings are based on the perceptions and memories that participants have of their childhood rather than on objective events. This may be problematic because some groups of individuals could be more or less prone than others to report experiences of maltreatment. This 'recall' bias has been described in individuals with a history of depression, who may be more likely to report abuse."
However, Teicher's team was able to test whether a history of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder might explain his observed effects of childhood maltreatment on the hippocampus, and showed that the results were independent of these factors.
Danese said future studies would need to clarify further the direction of the effect. "Although the authors report that childhood maltreatment is associated with smaller hippocampus regions, it is possible that these abnormalities pre-dated and possibly facilitated maltreatment exposure. Longitudinal and twin studies will help to clarify this issue."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/13/childhood-abuse-growth-brain-emotions