What could possibly be the motivation behind Law Enforcement and Division of Family Services abuse of families and civil rights? They are there to “help” and to protect innocent children, right?
You may be wrong in your assumptions.
Point: Child “protection” service is one of the biggest businesses in the country with a whopping $12 billion a year invested into it. Those funds are paid to various “collateral professionals” such as lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators, guardians, judges, etc, and to DFS contracted vendors such as counselors, therapists, residential facilities, foster parents, adoptive parents, and more.
Point: The commodity being bartered to fuel this $12 billion industry is CHILDREN.
Point: The Adoption and Safe Families Act (SFA) signed by President Clinton offers cash bonuses to states for every child they have adopted out of foster care, with the goal of doubling their adoptions by 2002, and sustaining that for each subsequent year. “They” actually call them adoption incentive bonuses, to promote the adoption of children.
Point: Under the SFA, each state was assigned a baseline number of expected adoptions based on POPULATION. Not based on the number of children that were currently “in the system”.
Point: Federal government implements MANDATORY REPORTER program which states certain individuals (doctors, teachers, clergy, etc) MUST REPORT IF THERE IS A SUSPICION OF ABUSE OR NEGLECT. Failure to REPORT may result in legal action, loss of license, or other penalty. Mandatory Reporter law does not allow for personal judgments.
Point: For each child DFS can get adopted, there is a bonus of $4,000 to $6,000. There is actually a complex mathematical formula in which each bonus is multiplied by the percentage that the state has managed to exceed its’ baseline number of foster adoptions for each state for the fiscal year.
Point: In the “technical assistance” section of the bill it states that, “the Secretary of Health and Human Services may, directly or through grants or contracts, provide technical assistance to states and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions for children in foster care.”
Point: The technical assistance is to support “the goal of encouraging more adoptions out of the foster care system; the development of best practice guidelines for expediting the termination of parental rights; the development of special units and expertise in moving children toward adoption as a permanent goal; models to encourage the fast tracking of children who have attained one (1) year of age into pre-adoptive placements; and the development of programs that place children into pre-adoptive placements without waiting for termination of parental rights.”
Point: A report from the National Center for Policy Analysis reads: “The way the federal government reimburses States rewards a growth in the size of the program instead of effective care of children.”
Point: Adoptive parents may collect cash subsidies until the child is eighteen (18) or twenty-two (22) if the child stays in school. They receive Medicaid for the child, a clothing allowance, and reimbursement of adoption process fees. They are also entitled to post adoption services such as daycare, in-home support services, housekeeping, counseling, and other child welfare services such as REMODELING THE HOME TO ACCOMMODATE THE CHILD since space for the child may be a “barrier to adoption”. Throw in some extra tax credits and it’s a win/win for adoptive parents.
Point: More care and support is given to adoptive parents than to natural parents who may be struggling to provide for their child. According to Cornell University, about 68% of all child protective cases “do not involve child maltreatment.” The largest percentage of cases involved “deprivation of necessities” due to poverty.
Point: FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998 THE STATE OF MISSOURI RECEIVED $110,999 IN ADOPTION BONUSES FOR INCREASING THE BASELINE ADOPTION NUMBER OF 557 TO 616, AN INCREASE OF 11%.
Point: FOR FISCAL YEAR 1999 THE STATE OF MISSOURI RECEIVED $430,364 IN ADOPTION BONUSES FOR INCREASING THE BASELINE ADOPTION NUMBER OF 616 TO 817, AN INCREASE OF 33%.
Point: Missouri received $494,000 in bonuses for 2003; and $628,729 for 2005. (I have yet to find official reports for subsequent years)
Point: HHS report released November 3, 2006 indicated there were currently 513,000 children in the foster care system and that 114,000 of those were WAITING FOR ADOPTION.
Point: Health and Human Services report released April 2, 2007 indicated that for fiscal year 2005, an estimated 899,000 children in 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico were determined (by them, of course) to be victims of abuse or neglect.
Division of Family Services, Child Protection Services, and the Juvenile Justice System is a well-orchestrated, corrupt enterprise which traffics children for profit.