That recent story about the little girl who was beaten to death by her parents in NY has honestly, emotional disturbed me.


I heard on the news while this story was being reported that an estimated 1,500 children die every year in the US as a result of abuse.
source

This is a fatality rate that is even higher than the one for American soldiers who are currently at war.

Why is this not an issue that gets much attention except when the truly graphic and neglectful state failures such as the one that just ocurred in NY surface?

What can be done to help lower this rate and protect our nation's children?

Do you feel that the American philosophy of freedom and privacy hinders our ability to properly protect children in this country?

Why is this not an issue that gets much attention except when the truly graphic and neglectful state failures such as the one that just occurred in NY surface? Actually the child was give up by one sister to be brought up by her sibling. I was horrified as well.


You would think that neighbors would have had some idea that bad things were going on in this hous and called the police or social services.

Do you feel that the American philosophy of freedom and privacy hinders our ability to properly protect children in this country?
Not really. We have lots of laws to protect kids. In most states the child would have been removed from a house where she/he was being beaten. What is missing here are any reports indicating that this was a household that had problems in the past that the police or social services people knew about.

I would imagine that it doesn't get a lot of attention as it's a kill-joy to report. If they reported every case like this, or at least gave it more attention than a small snippet in a newspaper, people would throw up their arms at the "bad news" that is occuring and look for more positive media outlets, at least, that's probably what a lot of editors and producers fear. You can't have a big report on it and then have the co-anchors schmooze about it and joke around. On top of that, this is one of those things that in all reality, there is little you can do about it. A lot of it is decided through the courts, so any outrage and that kind of thing mellows away as it comes out that the abusers have low IQs, are foreign citizens, or are given jail terms. Most people probably have their own crude form of justice that they believe would suffice, but in reality, a system dealing with this already takes over.



The number of social workers is dreadfully small and they have unbelievable case loads. It's amazing that many people are pro-life in utero, but as soon as the child is born, any and all funding to protect life somehow evaporates in favor of tax returns and "less government" They also need to re-think how investigations occur as right now, you may report suspected abuse or that kidn of thing, it's quite another for the state to actually have someone carry through with it.



It's amazing how bad parents try and use that to shield any oversite of their poor parenting. "You can't tell me how to raise my kids!" or "In my day, we were all abused!" are common comments that my wife, who is a counselor, hears almost daily. It's also a form of rationalizing the abuse and an opportunity for poor parents to not owe up to what they've done to kids. I commented earlier on the lack of interest state wise in regards to looking into leads, I think the privacy thing is a major factor as the attitude seems to be: "Don't do anything unless it makes the media or embarrasses the agency."

REally, really tough subject- it is very, very hard to balance child safety with the most basic issues of privacy and goverment interference.

Every knee jerk reaction to a horrible instance like this- usually results in some horrible abuses on the goverment side.

Recent court case/lawsuit up here involves a guy on a blacklist for a foster parent when he was wanting to help take care of some family member- he didn't even know he was on it- because it is private or something- it was some allegation that had no basis in reality, and because the social worker recorded the allegation, and even the subsequent findings- there was no due proccess to have his name removed from this list!

Working with these kinds of problems, and in fact, last week we discharged back to jail a lady that starved her kid to death, but the other kid was fine- and everyone in the village suspected some problem- why in the world didn't they say something?

But in the same breath - we deal with kids that routinely make false allegations because of a variety of reasons- usually 'spoiled brat-ism"

so how do you fix such a horribly complex problem- one would be to hire more social workers- they simply have too high a workload- but it means ALOT of money- these are masters level education employees- and, you have to entice a person into masters programs with MONEY at some point- altruism doesn't pay college tuition!

We have a horrible shortage of social workers right now- just like teachers and nurses- because it just pays more to be in another proffession- with alot less work and heart ache.