The summaries are designed to provide a reference for persons researching criminal child abuse legislation; they present an abridged and potentially incomplete picture of charging statutes in various States and is intended only as an initial reference. The entries do not include sentencing information for every statute, although this information is occasionally included in the text of statutes annotated here. Only statutes identifying emotional abuse of children as a crime are included, while those pertaining to physical or sexual abuse have been omitted. Definitions are included only when referred to in the statute and needed for understanding it. Defenses to the crime of emotional abuse are not included here.