Chornice Lewis Sentence

For this week you’ll read two articles.  The first is titled “Lewis Case” (read this first), the second is titled “Chornice Lewis Sentence”(read this second, you can find it in the files section as Canvas would not let me attach to files to this post).

I have to warn you that the readings contain details of terrible physical abuse.  I read the first article in the Tacoma News Tribune in 2007 when it was originally printed.  I remember exactly where I was when I read that article.  I was a BRAND NEW social worker (like really, really new, like was in training but hadn’t been assigned cases yet).  I was so scared that I would miss something and that a child could be harmed to this extent.  I was frustrated with the system that I’d only been working at for a few weeks.  I was terrified that someone would do this to a child.  Five years later I saw two children whose abuser had gone to similar lengths to torture them.

Recently I read another article (Child Torture as a Form of Child Abuse by Barbara L. Knox, Suzanne P. Starling, Kenneth W. Feldman**, Nancy D. Kellogg, Lori D. Frasier & Suzanna  (**Dr. Feldman is a well known child abuse specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital)  that described over 25 cases of child abuse that the authors felt reached the definition of child torture.  ” The children in this case series suffered a severe combined type of child abuse including extreme physical and psychological maltreatment ). Torture goes beyond simple polyvictimization in that it includes an increased severity ofboth physical and psychological maltreatment. It involves intense humiliation and terrorization (Finkelhor et al. 2011).  What surprised me was that in each case there was a FEMALE caregiver present in the home who was either part of the torture of the child or stood by while it happened.  This SHOCKED me to no end.

Tell me what you think about my bias?  How does this relate to the Chornice Lewis case?  Do you think bias played a role in the failure to detect what was going on in her home or were their other issues at play?  What other thoughts or questions do you have about the Chornice Lewis case?