Newswise — DURHAM, N.H. – Two nationally recognized child abuse experts from the University of New Hampshire are available to discuss the beating of a Texas woman when she was 16 years old, allegedly by her father, a Texas county court judge.
The case involves Texas Court-At-Law Judge William Adams and his daughter, Hillary Adams. According to media reports, the judge is now under investigation after a video of the beating, which is reported to have taken place in 2004 when the daughter was 16, was released on YouTube Tuesday evening.
David Finkelhor, director of the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center and an expert on child abuse, can be reached at 603-767-1010 and [email protected].
Murray Straus, co-director of the UNH Family Research Lab and a national expert on corporal punishment, can be reached at 603-862-2594 and [email protected].
“This is a case of child abuse, not socially acceptable corporal punishment. But it illustrates one of many reasons parents should never spank – spanking opens up the possibility of it escalating into physical abuse. Only a minute fraction of cases of spanking become physical abuse. However, four different studies have found that about two-thirds of cases of physical abuse started out as legal corporal punishment and escalated to become physical abuse,” Straus said.
“Parents should never spank. Not just because of the tiny risk that it will escalate into physical abuse, but even more because more than a hundred studies have found that legal and socially approved spanking increases the chance that the child will have behavior problems later on,” he said.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.
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