Identifying a Social Problem, the Consequences to Society caused by Essay

Identifying a Social Problem, the Consequences to Society caused by it, and a possible Solution to the problem - Essay Example It includes sustained low levels of income for members of a community. It includes a lack of access to services like education, markets, health care, lack of decision making ability, and lack of communal facilities like water, sanitation, roads, transportation, and communications.† It is social in nature because it permeates the smallest unit of every society – the individual in the family and affects his interrelationships with other members of his social class. Because children, as victims of neglect due to the inability of parents to support and sustain their needs, instead of being productive members of society when they grow up, there is a tendency for maladjusted behaviors compromising potentials for revenues for the society; therefore, society needs to address five factors contributory to poverty such as ignorance, apathy, disease, dishonesty and dependency. There are many negative consequences to society relating to the issue of poverty, such as: lack of access t o education, unemployment, inability to access health care, inaccessibility to public utilities and resources. A large portion of the underprivileged and the poor are women without husbands, the old, children, unskilled, and disabled people with physical handicaps and severe mental condition. Due to the inability of parents to support and sustain the children’s needs, children of poor families are deemed neglected and abused. According to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), child abuse and neglect is defined as â€Å"any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm† (USDHHS, par. 1). In a related research published by the NSPCC, the information from the report reveals that children of impoverished families are recipients of negative outcomes, such as: poor health, i ncreased tendencies for early death, illness or accident, inability to attend proper educational instructions, higher propensities for criminal activities, or increased tendencies to be crime victims (NSPCC, 2). The long term effects of child neglect are suffered by society in terms of shouldering direct costs local agencies spending more in terms of providing services for child welfare programs, legal advice, and provision of health care (NAIC, 3). In addition, society is likewise affected indirectly through supporting and sustaining expenses for mental illness, drug abuse, criminal activity, loss of productivity due to underemployment and unemployment, and increased use of health care systems (NAIC, 3). This simply means that society shoulders direct expenses from welfare, health and legal programs of poor families. On the other hand, when children of poor parents could not afford to give them proper education, they turn out to perform lower and terms of employment and could have greater tendencies to commit crime. In this regard, society through state and federal authorities must enact and collaborate towards eliminating the root causes of poverty to address the ills identified linking poverty to child maltreatment and neglect. As proposed by Bartle, as poverty