Is Anybody Surprised?

Like Rush Limbaugh, "I toldya so!" The report on how to stop killing more children next year is in: and as I predicted, it calls for "more money and more people." Specifically, they're going to "create a new position" of "child protection director" and spend nearly $1.7 million MORE to hire 65 new workers (PLUS the 40 other new workers they've already got a $2 million dollar increase in funding to hire). The Denver Department of Human Resources said, "There is a critical need to continue to develop new staff capacity in order to enable staff to make the right decisions for each child and family." Bureaucrat-speak for "if we just had more money and more people, we cold do a competent job," thus predictably turning incompetence into a fund-raiser. (Denver Post)

Surprise, Surprise!

"From one end of Colorado to another, in farm towns and urban centers, people are seeing -- or think they are seeing -- child abuse and neglect on an unprecedented scale. Statewide, the number of child-abuse reports has soared, from 42,559 in 2001 to 68,657 in 2006, a 61 percent jump, state figures show. But whether it is because those reports are patently unfounded or because their sheer numbers overwhelm child welfare agencies strained by years of budget cuts, almost half of those reports are never checked out." The fact is, 80% or more -- by their own numbers -- of such reports ARE unfounded because there is no penalty for those who make such reports, even if they're not only wrong, but are intentionally wrong, made to distract people's attention from other things. It has become a well-known fact that lawyers routinely advise their clients to make such reports for this reason, to take their opponent's attention off the action they're in. The "child protectors" do "investigate" as many of these "reports" as they can, but the sheer volume of "reports" makes it impossible for them to get to many of them, and they then "miss" REAL child abuse and children are killed or injured. Add to that the fact that (again by their own numbers, hard to find) children are much more apt to die, be injured, or raped while IN foster care just makes it worse. This story in the Denver Post comes right out and confirms my statement that 80% or more "reports" are unfounded when they say, "When referrals are investigated, abuse or neglect typically is substantiated in about 20 percent of cases, state figures show." [Emphasis mine -RT] If the "child protectors" would stop treating every case as if it were true, and the "report" prima-facie evidence of abuse, spending a lot more time on each case than necessary, just to collect those ubiquitous federal fees, they'd have time to get to the REAL cases of child abuse that go ignored today. I don't believe the Post is surprised at this. I think they're just pretending. The result of this "expose" will be more money for the "child protectors," a few low level "heads" will roll, and it will be "business as usual." Government, and especially the "child protectors are the only organizations who can turn failure into "fund-raising." (The Denver Post)