This classic study of law and social work in action (by Robert Dingwall, John Eekelaar and Topsy Murray) is based on the most extensive investigation of child abuse and neglect ever carried out in Great Britain. The authors followed the course of numerous cases from the first detection of ill-treatment to the resolution (or otherwise) of the problem. Famous for coining the much-used (and misunderstood) phrase "the rule of optimism," this book is updated with an extensive Postscript from 1995 and a new, 2014 Preface that explains the uneven history of the optimism principle.