In October 2000, a seventeen-year-old boy called 911 and reported that he and his twelve-year-old brother were chained in their bedroom. When authorities arrived at their home, located in a rural desert community in California, they found that the two boys were not in chains. However, dog chains were found attached to their bedposts, and the boys had marks on their wrists suggesting they had recently been restrained. In addition, they were filthy, underdeveloped mentally and physically, and had scars on their backs.

While everyone agrees that the abuse of children in this manner is a horrible crime, many commentators disagree on how common such cases are. The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information reports that in 1998, there were 2,806,000 reports of child abuse and neglect in America. While many of these were “screened out” or found to be &ldquo...