Accidents Are Not Abuse
Video Transcript: What is considered child abuse in Oklahoma? My name is Jason Sorenson. I’m a Tulsa attorney at Wirth Law Office, and today were going to be talking about child abuse in Oklahoma.
So, under Title 21, child abuse is the intentional or malicious harm to a child, and that can be threatened or actual harm to the child. So, it doesn’t have to be harm that’s carried out. It can even be just threats of harm. And it can also be just failing to protect a child from harm or threats to their health, safety, or welfare. But what exactly does the statute mean when it says malice or maliciousness?
Well, really what they’re looking for with that is kind of an intent to injure the child, not an accident. So, accidents do not constitute child abuse. So, lets say you’re walking down the street and you accidentally tripped the child, and the child falls and is seriously injured, possibly even breaks their arm. Well, even though the child was seriously hurt, it was an accident. There was no intent behind it, there was no malice behind it. It was just an innocent mistake.
On the other hand, lets say you’re walking with the child, and you purposely push the child down with the intent to hurt the child. Well, now that could possibly be child abuse because your intent was to hurt the child. But this is just general information.
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