Law 792-AAA: Children's Health, Violence, and the Law: Home

Family Law

• The effects of parental domestic violence on child custody cases.
• The inadequacies of mental health treatment and resources provided to unaccompanied undocumented minor immigrants.
• The inadequacy of policies and procedures to protect victims and their families in international child abduction cases involving domestic violence.

Criminal Law

• The impact that recruitment of U.S. youth into organized crime for the purposes of committing nonviolent drug offenses has on cultivating said youth into violent criminals.
• The need for mental health regulations that address medically-diagnosed juvenile psychopaths.
• An examination of the outcome of the Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition decision concerning child pornography, in light of its secondary effects on children.
• A comparative study of the juvenile criminal law in the United States and France that applies to children under age 13.
• The inadequacies of current Illinois laws governing teens and young adults accused of sexting.
• The need for revisions to state statutory rape laws that permit 18-year old students to have sexual relationships with teachers.
• While current laws governing the consumption of child pornography and other media that sexualizes children are inadequate to protect children, they also infringe on constitutional rights.
• The role that socioeconomics play in charging decisions and the deleterious effects to society of charging minors as adults in certain criminal contexts.

Popular Culture

• The need for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to regulate video games due to the impracticability of the legislature to regulate violence in video games while maintaining free speech rights.
• An examination of the impact of sexting on children.

International Issues

• The insufficiency of European Union directives on combating child trafficking in the European Union and need for revision of those directives.
• The effects of war on children raised in war-torn countries, focusing on countries making up the former Yugoslavia.
• The inadequacies of current international laws to address risks to children who are victims of sex trafficking.  

LGBT Topics

• Issues that transgendered students face in schools, and the role of school administration in ameliorating those issues.

Health and Medical Topics

• Race and socioeconomic class as barriers to mental health treatment of children.