Empirical evidence on legal levers aimed at addressing child maltreatment

Law is a powerful tool for combatting public health issues. This article reviews existing empirical research on the effect of eight legal levers on outcomes related to child maltreatment. Laws created with the intent to address child maltreatment are often enacted without empirical basis. Further, following implementation, there is little empirical research on whether such statutes reduce or deter child maltreatment and improve child outcomes. This is in part due to the difficulty in studying the effects of a specific statute on measurable child outcomes.