Crimes against humanity: 500 deaths of abused children in Texas

I am getting ready to charge my community -Monadnock region of NH and NH itself -with "crimes against humanity" and "state sponsored systemic terrorism" against the disabled. You understand I am not charging the politicians and bureaucrats with these ghastly crimes -I am going to charge all of the good people of the community with knowingly abusing the disabled -to knowingly keeping the abuses hidden from the public's eyes because of economic self interest -low taxes.

http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/crimes-against-humanity.html



an. 12, 2005, 8:18PM
PICKING UP THE PIECES

After years of administrative neglect and budgetary malnutrition, elected officials must finally end their abuse of Texas Child Protective Services
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

It's taken more than 500 deaths of abused children in Texas over the past 2 1/2 years to awaken the public and their representatives to the grievous consequences of slashing the budget of the agency entrusted with protecting those kids. Now it seems every political figure in Austin is shocked, truly shocked, and ready to free up hundreds of millions of dollars to address the problem.

"The system is obviously broken," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. "It's outrageous. It's heartbreaking. It's unacceptable. And we must fix it."
Gov. Rick Perry has made CPS reform his top priority in this legislative session after commissioning an investigative report in the wake of an indictment of the agency by an Hidalgo County grand jury.

State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn issued her own critical report on foster care last year, which found child abuse by approved foster parents and overuse of psychiatric medications to control children.

When so many elected officials suddenly agree there's a crisis, one has to wonder where they all were when the funding for Child Protective Services was repeatedly cut, creating the current emergency. As the Chronicle's Terri Langford reported, that process began in 1995 when more than 600 clerical and case technician positions were eliminated from the agency.

CPS investigators depend on staff assistance to maintain mandatory case records. When a technician is not available to transcribe caseworker dictation, that forces the worker to divert time from directly assisting clients and investigating abuse reports. That in turn feeds into growing caseload backlogs, which have now reached an average of 75 per investigator across the state and more than 100 in San Antonio. Those unworkable caseloads create burnout and rapid turnover among investigators. With a cycle like that, no one should be surprised when children fall through the cracks and end up neglected or worse as a result.

The case that caught Gov. Perry's attention occurred last year in South Texas, where lax CPS supervision allegedly allowed a stepfather to abuse three daughters. That led the Hidalgo County grand jury to return three felony indictments against the Department of Family and Protective Services, which runs CPS. The district attorney refused to file charges, explaining there was no practical way to prosecute a state agency. Other recent high-profile abuse cases include a 2-year-old girl beaten to death in San Antonio; a young boy starved to death in Arlington; and an infant fatally mutilated by a Plano mother. In all of these cases, CPS was criticized for not acting in time to save the youngsters.

Perry's report calls for an additional $329 million CPS budget increase over two years and nearly 850 additional investigators statewide. Their goal would be to reduce caseloads per worker from 75 to 45 and lower response times for some abuse calls from 10 days to 72 hours. The budget increase would also create an office of investigations that would apply law enforcement and forensic tools to CPS probes.

These are minimal steps to address a horrible situation that Texas lawmakers must take some responsibility for having created. No less than a foster parent responsible for nurturing a child, lawmakers who starve an agency cannot then express surprise at the results. The real tragedy is that in order to save children from abuse in this state, it has taken so many deaths to point the way.