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Objectives: Characteristics of the child victim, perpetrator; and maltreatment incident were used to examine predictors of court involvement in cases of serious child maltreatment. Method: Cases were drawn from those reported to: child protective services (n = 225), sheriff's office (n = 225), prosecutor's office (n = 60), and dependency court (n = 65). Logistic regression was used to calculate predicted probabilities of criminal court involvement and dependency court involvement Results: Cases involving female victims were more likely to be filed in criminal Court, and sexual abuse had the highest likelihood of prosecution. Cases involving male perpetrators, older perpetrators, and multiple victims were more likely to be filed for prosecution. Physical neglect was the most common type of maltreatment to result in dependency court filings. Perpetrator gender had opposite effects in the two systems. Conclusion: Tracking cases even in the same jurisdiction is confounded by the lack of common identifiers across the agencies involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes the concept of a child-centered social worker committed to minimizing the potential for system-induced trauma by assisting the sexually abused child through the judicial process and providing clinical treatments as well. The prosecution of child sexual abuse cases continues to be an area in which there is a strain between the judicial system and the social work profession. The former is predominantly interested in the conviction of the accused and the later is primarily interested in the protection of the child's emotional well-being. Social workers have played an important part in the legal process and are attuned to developmental needs of children and their concerns. Social workers are recognized as experts in the area of child sexual abuse because they work with abused children more regularly than other professional groups. Increasingly, social workers are being called on by the legal system to provide information about the nature of sexual abuse and its impact on children. Social workers have become more involved in efforts to educate the child about and facilitate their ability to participate in the courtroom processes. There is a need to re-conceptualize the traditional role played by the clinical social worker.