What definitions are important to know? |
- “Abandonment” means
- (i) the failure of a parent to provide reasonable support and to maintain regular contact with a child through statement or contact when the failure is accompanied by an intention on the part of the parent to permit the condition to continue for an indefinite period in the future or the failure of a parent to support or maintain regular contact with a child without just cause, or
- (ii) an articulated intent to forego parental responsibility.
- “Abuse” means any of the following acts or omissions by a parent, guardian, custodian, foster parent, person 18 years of age or older living in the home with a child whether related or unrelated to the child, or any person who is entrusted with the child’s care by a parent, guardian, custodian, or foster parent, including, but not limited to, an agent or employee of a public or private residential home, child care facility, public or private school, a significant other of the child’s parent, or any person legally responsible for the child’s welfare, but excluding the spouse of a minor:
- Extreme or repeated cruelty to a child;
- Engaging in conduct creating a realistic and serious threat of death, permanent or temporary disfigurement, or impairment of any bodily organ;
- Injury to a child’s intellectual, emotional, or psychological development as evidenced by observable and substantial impairment of the child’s ability to function within the child’s normal range of performance and behavior;
- Any injury that is at variance with the history given;
- Any non-accidental physical injury;
- Any of the following intentional or knowing acts, with physical injury and without justifiable cause:
- Throwing, kicking, burning, biting, or cutting a child;
- Striking a child with a closed fist;
- Shaking a child; or
- Striking a child on the face or head; or
- Any of the following intentional or knowing acts, with or without physical injury:
- Striking a child six (6) years of age or younger on the face or head;
- Shaking a child three (3) years of age or younger;
- Interfering with a child’s breathing;
- Pinching, biting, or striking a child in the genital area;
- Tying a child to a fixed or heavy object or binding or tying a child’s limbs together;
- Giving a child or permitting a child to consume or inhale a poisonous or noxious substance not prescribed by a physician that has the capacity to interfere with normal physiological functions;
- Giving a child or permitting a child to consume or inhale a substance not prescribed by a physician that has the capacity to alter the mood of the child, including, but not limited to, the following: marijuana, alcohol (excluding certain established religious ceremonies), a narcotic or an over-the-counter drug if a person purposefully administers an overdose to a child or purposefully gives an inappropriate over-the-counter drug to a child and the child is detrimentally impacted by the overdoes of the over-the-counter drug;
- Exposing a child to a chemical that has the capacity to interfere with normal physiological functions, including, but not limited to, a chemical used or generated during the manufacture of methamphetamine;
- Subjecting a child to Munchausen syndrome by proxy or a factitious illness by proxy if the incident is confirmed by medical personnel; or
- Recruiting, harboring, transporting, or obtaining a child for labor or services, through force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery; or female genital mutilation.
- “Abuse” does not include physical discipline of a child when it is reasonable and moderate and is inflicted by a parent or guardian for purposes of restraining or correcting the child.
- “Child” means a person under the age of 18.
- “Child maltreatment” means abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, sexual exploitation, or abandonment.
- “Grooming” means to knowingly disseminate (i.e., allow to view, expose, furnish, present, sell, or otherwise distribute, including on an electronic device or virtual platform, and is not limited to an act that takes place in the physical presence of a child) to a child 13 years of age or younger with or without consideration a visual or print medium depicting sexually explicit content with the purpose to entice, induce, or groom the child to engage in the following with a person: sexual intercourse; sexually explicit conduct; or deviate sexual activity;
- “Imminent harm” means an act of harm that is a danger:
- To the physical, mental, or emotional health of a child;
- That is constrained by time; and;
- That may only be prevented by immediate intervention by a court.
- “Neglect” means:
- Those acts or omissions of a parent, guardian, custodian, foster parent, or any person who is entrusted with the child’s care by a parent, custodian, guardian, or foster parent, including, but not limited to, an agent or employee of a public or private residential home, child care facility, public or private school, or any person legally responsible under state law for the child’s welfare, but excluding the spouse of a minor and the parents of the married minor, which constitute:
- Failure or refusal to prevent the abuse of the child when the person knows or has reasonable cause to know the child is or has been abused;
- Failure or refusal to provide necessary food, clothing, shelter, or medical treatment necessary for the child’s well-being, except when the failure or refusal is caused primarily by the financial inability of the person legally responsible and no services for relief have been offered;
- Failure to take reasonable action to protect the child from abandonment, abuse, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, or neglect when the existence of the condition was known or should have been known, and, if for abuse or neglect, the failure to take reasonable action to protect the juvenile causes serious bodily injury;
- Failure or irremediable inability to provide for the essential and necessary physical, mental, or emotional needs of the child, including the failure to provide a shelter that does not pose a risk to the health or safety of the child;
- Failure to provide for the child’s care and maintenance, proper or necessary support, or medical, surgical, or other necessary care;
- Failure, although able, to assume responsibility for the care and custody of the child or to participate in a plan to assume such responsibility;
- Failure to appropriately supervise the child that results in the child’s being left alone:
- At an inappropriate age creating a dangerous situation; or
- In inappropriate circumstances creating a dangerous situation;
- Failure to appropriately supervise the child that results in the child’s being placed in inappropriate circumstances creating a dangerous situation;
- Failure to ensure a child between six (6) years of age and seventeen (17) years of age is enrolled in school or is being legally home-schooled; or
- An act or omission by the parent, custodian, or guardian of the child that results in the child’s being habitually and without justification absent from school;
- Causing a child to be born with an illegal substance (i.e., a drug that is prohibited to be used or possessed without a prescription under Arkansas law) present in the child’s bodily fluids or bodily substances as a result of the pregnant mother’s knowingly using an illegal substance before the birth of the child; or
- At the time of the birth of a child, the presence of an illegal substance in the mother’s bodily fluids or bodily substances as a result of the pregnant mother’s knowingly using an illegal substance before the birth of the child.
- “Sexual Abuse” means:
- By a person 14 years of age or older to a person younger than 18 years of age:
- Sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact by forcible compulsion;
- Attempted sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact by forcible compulsion;
- Indecent exposure; or
- Forcing the watching of pornography or live sexual activity;
- By a person 18 years of age or older to a person not his or her spouse who is younger than 15 years of age:
- Sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact;
- Attempted sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact; or
- Solicitation of sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact;
- By a person 20 years of age or older to a person not his or her spouse who is younger than 16 years of age:
- Sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact;
- Attempted sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact; or
- Solicitation of sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact;
- By a caretaker to a person younger than 18 years of age:
- Sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact;
- Attempted sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact;
- Forcing or encouraging the watching of pornography;
- Forcing, permitting, or encouraging the watching of live sexual activity;
- Forcing the listening to a phone sex line; or
- An act of voyeurism;
- By a person younger than 14 years of age to a person younger than 18 years of age:
- Sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact by forcible compulsion; or
- Attempted sexual intercourse, deviate sexual activity, or sexual contact by forcible compulsion; or
- By a person eighteen (18) years of age or older to a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age:
- Recruiting, harboring, transporting, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a child for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
- Grooming, by:
- A person 18 years of age or older to a person not his or her spouse who is younger than 14 years of age; or
- A caretaker to a person younger than 14 years of age.
- “Sexual Exploitation” means:
- The following by a person eighteen (18) years of age or older to a child who is not his or her spouse:
- (A) allowing, permitting, or encouraging participation or depiction of the child in:
- prostitution;
- obscene photography; or
- obscene filming; or
- (B) obscenely depicting, obscenely posing, or obscenely posturing a child for any use or purpose.
- The following by a caretaker to a child:
- Allowing, permitting, or encouraging participation or depiction of the child in prostitution; obscene photography or obscene filming; or
- Obscenely depicting, obscenely posing, or obscenely posturing the child for any use or purpose.
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