Each state is responsible for providing definitions of child abuse and neglect within the civil and criminal context. The parent or caretaker may not have intended to hurt the child, rather the injury may have resulted from excessive discipline or physical punishment.
Neglect can be physical, educational, or emotional.
Physical neglect includes refusal of or delay in seeking health care, abandonment, expulsion from the home or refusal to allow a runaway to return home, and inadequate supervision. Educational neglect includes the allowance of chronic truancy, failure to enroll a child of mandatory school age in school, and failure to attend to special educational needs. Emotional neglect includes such actions as marked inattention to the child's needs for affection, refusal of or failure to provide needed psychological care, domestic violence in the child's presence, and permitting drug or alcohol use by the child. The assessment of child neglect requires consideration of the cultural values and standards of care as well as recognition that the failure to provide the necessities of life to a child may be related to poverty. Less severe acts, such as regular scapegoating or belittling are often difficult to prove and, therefore, CPS may not be able to intervene without evidence of harm to the child.