Breaking Through a Murderous Silence

Breaking Through a Murderous Silence

By MARK A. UHLIG

LEAD: HUNDREDS of mourners, many weeping, stood in line late last week to pay respects to 6-year-old Elizabeth Steinberg, the Greenwich Village girl who died Nov. 5 after what the police said was a brutal beating by her adoptive parents.

HUNDREDS of mourners, many weeping, stood in line late last week to pay respects to 6-year-old Elizabeth Steinberg, the Greenwich Village girl who died Nov. 5 after what the police said was a brutal beating by her adoptive parents.

''This case has captured the imagination of the public,'' said Cesar A. Perales, the State Commissioner of Social Services. ''We've never seen anything like it.''

But the outpouring of rage and publicity that followed Elizabeth's death also worked to highlight, by contrast, the silence that has surrounded thousands of other child abuse cases - many of them equally shocking, and just as lethal.

What made the case of Joel B. Steinberg, a Manhattan lawyer, and Hedda Nussbaum, who lived with him, different from so many others? And what accounted for the unusual grip that it has exerted on the mind and mood of the city?

Statistical surveys of child abuse make it clear that, in terms of race and class, the Steinberg case is an exception. And social workers and journalists have been left to ponder how they might have handled the situation if, like most such cases, it had occurred in a neighborhood like the South Bronx.

''In this case you're clearly dealing with a white, middle-class, professional, Jewish family that does not fit in with our notions of a family in which you'd find this kind of violence,'' said Mr. Perales, whose office is responsible for overseeing child protective services throughout the state. ''I don't think we would get this kind of attention if it were a poor minority family.''

Many journalists defended the intense coverage of the case by pointing out that the educational and professional background of the Steinberg family made the incident far more surprising, less defensible -and more newsworthy - than similar abuse in a desperately poor or uneducated household. Hiding the Damage

Some officials also noted that the case may serve to broaden public awareness of child abuse by demonstrating that it is a problem that cuts across boundaries of race and class. And they pointed out that abuse in higher-income families is often less visible because the families can afford lawyers, private medical care, and other means of concealing it.

But statistics on the incidence of child abuse raised the troubling question of whether all tragedies are created equal.

According to a study released last January by Mayor Koch's Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, 67 percent of fatal and 51 percent of non-fatal child abuse cases in 1984 occurred in black families. Hispanic families accounted for 21 percent of fatal cases and 32 percent of non-fatal cases. White families made up only 6 percent of fatal cases and 11 percent of non-fatal cases.

Families on welfare accounted for 71 percent of fatal cases and 78 percent of non-fatal cases.

As journalists ''we tend to treat [ child abuse ] as commonplace in the black or have-not part of the community - as though this is just part of the life that goes on there,'' said Norman Isaacs, a former associate dean of the School of Journalism at Columbia University. ''I don't think that's necessarily a bias,'' he said. ''We're operating on the best instincts we have as to what is or is not the news. That's why I think we need a better mix in our newsrooms of different types of people who can interpret different types of stories -we've been too narrow for too many years.''

Whatever their weaknesses, the instincts of news editors were mirrored in the larger population, which reacted with an outrage and a new concern that state officials hope will have lasting benefits.

In New York, according to Terrance McGrath, a spokesman for the State Department of Social Services, calls to a special state hotline on child abuse and maltreatment have increased by 75 to 80 percent since the Steinberg case began, with 1,500 calls received on Nov. 9 alone.

Moreover, accusations that Mr. Steinberg beat Ms. Nussbaum and was involved with illegal drugs have served as reminders that child abuse rarely occurs in isolation from other family problems.

''This case has every single thing in it, and it is still unfolding,'' said Ronnie Eldridge, of the Battered Women's Defense Committee. ''It has a bizarre quality - every day there is something new.''

''What's interesting about this case is that it is symbolic of all of the problems families face,'' said Dr. Marcia Renwanz, staff director of the Subcommittee on Children, Families, Drugs and Alcohol of the United States Senate. ''Sure it happens all the time. But the thing about this case is that it really illustrates the problem in all three areas'' of child abuse, family violence and adoption policy.

Dr. Renwanz said she expected the case to facilitate agreement on pending legislation to provide increased Federal spending for child abuse prevention, domestic counseling and adoption services. And that, officials say, may be Elizabeth Steinberg's most important legacy.