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Protecting Individual Liberties In The Context Of Screening For Child Abuse, Donald N. Duquette

Book Chapters

A central role of the law in our society is to act as buffer between individual citizens and society at large. When personal freedom or liberty is at stake, the law acts as arbiter between individuals and government and allows liberty to be abrogated only after "due process of law." Due process is an attempt to insure fair treatment of all concerned-a quest for fairness. In what follows due process will be discussed further together with some examples of the due process model as applied to the child protection system. Certain risks to personal freedom are inherent in child protection. …