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In the January edition of Pediatrics researchers explored two issues: The Prevalence and Characteristics of Youth Sexting and How Often Are Teens Arrested for Sexting?

Prior to the research estimates of the prevalence of sexting varied considerably depending on the nature of the images or videos and the role of the youth involved.

A cross-sectional national telephone survey of 1560 youth Internet users, ages 10 through 17, discovered that only 2.5% of youth appeared in or created nude or nearly nude pictures or videos.

However, this percentage was reduced to 1.0% when the definition was restricted to only include images that were sexually explicit (ie, showed naked breasts, genitals, or bottoms). Of the youth who participated in the survey, 7.1% said they had received nude or nearly nude images of others; 5.9% of youth reported receiving sexually explicit images. Few youth distributed these images.

The researchers concluded that since policy debates on youth sexting behavior focus on concerns about the production and possession of illegal child pornography, it is important to have research that collects details about the nature of the sexual images rather than using ambiguous screening questions without follow-ups.

The rate of youth exposure to sexting highlights a need to provide them with information about legal consequences of sexting and advice about what to do if they receive a sexting image. However, the data suggest that appearing in, creating, or receiving sexual images is far from being a normative behavior for youth.

The second study examined the characteristics of youth sexting cases handled by police and their outcomes in response to clinical and other concerns about the risks of sexting behavior.

Mail surveys were sent to a stratified national sample of 2712 law enforcement agencies followed by detailed telephone interviews with investigators about a nationally representative sample of sexting cases handled by police during 2008 and 2009 (n = 675). The cases involved “youth-produced sexual images” that constituted child pornography under relevant statutes according to respondents.

The researchers discovered that US law enforcement agencies handled an estimated 3477 cases of youth-produced sexual images during 2008 and 2009 (95% confidence interval: 3282-3672). Two-thirds of the cases involved an “aggravating” circumstance beyond the creation and/or dissemination of a sexual image.

In these aggravated cases, either an adult was involved (36% of cases) or a minor engaged in malicious, non-consensual, or abusive behavior (31% of cases). An arrest occurred in 62% of cases with an adult involved, in 36% of the aggravated youth-only cases, and in 18% of the “experimental” cases (youth-only and no aggravating elements).

Most of the images (63%) were distributed by cell phone only and did not reach the Internet. Sex offender registration applied in only a few unusual cases.

The conclusion of this study is that many of the youth sexting cases that come to the attention of police include aggravating circumstances that raise concerns about health and risky sexual behavior, although some cases were relatively benign. Overall, arrest is not typical in cases with no adults involved.

Prevalence and Characteristics of Youth Sexting: A National Study

How Often Are Teens Arrested for Sexting? Data From a National Sample of Police Cases

Pedophilia occurs with disturbing frequency in athletic programs, churches, Boy Scout troops, and youth organizations—places that children congregate, including the homes of trusted family members.

Professor Daniel Pollack, a frequent contributor to ChildLaw, has co-authored a social work textbook called How to Screen Adoptive and Foster Parents: A Workbook for Professionals and Students. If you read this blog regularly, you'll know all about this book which we profiled earlier this year.

A recent op-ed written by the book's co-author, James Dickerson, highlights this important work:

It is accepted in professional circles that you can help child sex abuse victims with appropriate therapy, but there is little that you can do to help pedophiles. They will offend again and again if they are not incarcerated. Someday there may emerge an effective treatment for them.

Today it does not exist.

The best way to protect children, boys and girls, from abuse is to properly screen individuals who apply for jobs that will require them to work with children, just as you would individuals who apply for foster and adoptive children.

It will not come as a surprise to mental health professionals that Sandusky was married and had adopted six children, along with opening his home to an unknown number of foster children. It is a recognizable pattern.

Although the science does not exist to treat pedophiles, the science does exist to screen them for abusive tendencies. I deal with this in a social work textbook that I co-authored with Professor Daniel Pollack of Yeshiva University, and Dr. Mardi Allen of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, on the subject of screening for abusive tendencies in adoptive and foster parent applicants.

In the book, we point out in a chapter devoted to the subject that pedophiles are naturally attracted to positions that require them to be around children. Of course, most Boy Scout leaders, church youth group leaders, and teachers are not pedophiles, but those categories are a natural draw to pedophiles and that is where you are most likely to find them.

What are some of the clues that should be recognized by social workers, parents, and employment screeners?

For the answer, buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or directly from the NASW Press.

Okay, I'm finally speechless. The Penn State scandal has finally done it. This post needs no further commentary:

Sandusky lawyer impregnated a teen

The lawyer for accused child molester Jerry Sandusky apparently likes his women young.

Defense attorney Joe Amendola, 63, representing Sandusky in the sexual molestation case roiling Penn State and Joe Paterno’s legendary football program, impregnated a teenager and later married her, The Daily has learned.

According to documents filed with Centre County Courthouse, Amendola served as the attorney for Mary Iavasile’s emancipation petition on Sept. 3, 1996, just weeks before her 17th birthday.

The emancipation request said Mary graduated from high school in two years with a 3.69 grade point average and maintained a full-time job — but makes no mention of any special relationship between her and her lawyer.

Roughly around the same time, however, Iavasile became pregnant with Amendola’s child, and gave birth before she turned 18, her mother, Janet Iavasile, alleged in an interview with The Daily.

He was born in 1948 and was around 49 at the time.

“At the time, I didn’t know the extent of the relationship,” said Janet of when her daughter first began spending time with the attorney. Amendola seemed more like Mary’s “mentor,” she added.

“She met him through the school district; she was interested in the law,” Janet said.

Read this entire story here at The Daily.

This just arrived in my inbox from the Massachusetts Citizens for Children Enough Abuse Campaign. It is well worth repeating here:

An Open Letter to Massachusetts Citizens About the Penn State Scandal
How We Can Prevent Child Sexual Abuse in Our State

While the Penn State child sexual abuse scandal and cover-up grab national attention, the fact is that cases of child sexual abuse continue to be exposed with unrelenting regularity in every state and community across our country. In Massachusetts alone just in the past six months, we have learned about the decades-long sexual abuse of boys treated by renowned pediatrician Dr. Melvin Levin of Children’s Hospital, the revealed boyhood sexual abuse of Senator Scott Brown by a counselor at a Cape Cod summer camp, the sexual abuse of young female tennis players by former Massachusetts coach and International Tennis Hall of Famer Bob Hewitt. Many more current incidents of child sexual abuse involving less well-known abusers appear weekly in local newspapers all across our state.

Predictably, the Sandusky/Paterno case has prompted the media to focus on who knew what and when. Legislators rush to file bills to strengthen reporting requirements, the alleged abuser is arrested and charged, and we all express sorry for the children who have been violated and for their families who are distressed beyond what we can even imagine.

But the truth is that these after-the-fact responses are insufficient to address what the American Medical Association has labeled “…a silent, violent epidemic.” It’s time to support efforts aimed at preventing child sexual abuse from happening in the first place. This is what Massachusetts Citizens for Children (MCC), lead agency for the Enough Abuse Campaign, has been working to do since the Campaign was launched in 2002.

A public opinion poll conducted in 2007 by the Campaign documented that:

• 80% of citizens believe child sexual abuse is a serious problem in our state
• 75% said they believe it is preventable
• 64% said they would be willing to participate in local community trainings about child sexual abuse and how they can prevent it—up from 48% in a poll conducted four years earlier

Clearly, citizens like you are critical partners in getting the word out that child sexual abuse can be prevented and that in Massachusetts, through the Enough Abuse Campaign, we have the tools and the tested strategies to get the job done.

As a parent, grandparent, or concerned citizen, we are asking you to:

1. Educate yourself about the real facts of child sexual abuse so that you can be an informed advocate for your children and all the children in your family and community.
2. Get involved with the Enough Abuse Campaign, a Massachusetts effort that has been recognized nationally as an effective model to mobilize communities and educate parents, youth, and a range of professionals and other adults about child sexual abuse and how to prevent it.
3. Support the Campaign with your dollars so we can achieve our goal: By 2015 every city and town in Massachusetts will be actively engaged in learning about child sexual abuse and preventing it.

As anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows, there's something rotten in the state of Pennsylvania when it comes to protecting children. From Masha Allen (who was adopted from Russia by a pedophile with the help of one of Pittsburgh's premier adoption agencies), to the Luzerne county kids for cash scandal, to high school students being spied on at home by school administrators; the list of woe goes on and on.

Now Hank Grezlak, the editor-in-chief of The Legal Intelligencer—Pennsylvania's influential legal daily—has articulated what many of us have known for years: It's Open Season on Children in Pennsylvania.

In this hard-hitting commentary, Grezlak writes:

In light of the Penn State sex abuse scandal, Pennsylvania really needs to change its nickname from the Keystone State to the Child Abuser State.

The shameful moniker fits. After a decade that has already included the Archdiocese of Philadelphia priest sex abuse scandal and the Luzerne County judicial scandal featuring "kids-for-cash," how can anyone argue that it isn't a fitting label?

In all three instances, powerful people and powerful institutions failed to protect the most vulnerable and innocent in society: children.

In all three instances, authorities were made aware of harm or wrongdoing being committed, and did nothing.

In all three instances, people have made excuses for those in power who failed to act, either by failing to report or investigate, allegations of misconduct.

As with the previous two scandals, in the wake of the Penn State disgrace, there will be much hand-wringing and demonizing of a few, along with committees and panels appointed. Inevitably, recommendations will be made that will largely be ignored.

There will be a push to put more laws on the books and stiffen penalties, but those largely will be punitive and after the worst has already been done. We're not hurting for prosecutors bringing high-profile cases and getting convictions. But again, that's about seeking justice after the worst has happened, not about protecting kids in advance.

We, as a society in Pennsylvania, have failed to protect our kids.

It's an excellent sobering commentary. A big shiny gold star to Mr. Grezlak for boldly stating what needs to be said and DONE and which should have been said and DONE years ago. Changing the culture will take time and vigilance. Grezlak takes a bold first step in the right direction.

Read his entire well-deserved invective here.

The rise of corporeal punishment theory is a troubling cultural phenomenon which really takes us back to the dark ages of unquestioned rule by authority. The link between spanking and conservative Christianity is insulting to the vast majority of believers who do not condone religiously inspired child abuse. It also creates a strange affinity between Catholicism—where child sex abuse has run rampant for years—and evangelicalism—where beating children has seemingly become the God-given norm; the Catholics get the sex and the Evangelicals get the hide. Where can a godly child find religion without loosing their heart and soul?

This is not to say that only Catholics and only Evangelicals have institutionalized child abuse. Anywhere children gather, pedophiles and child molesters are sure to roam. This should come as no secret to anyone. It is the indoctrination of these beliefs, however, which is most disturbing.

Last year, the Pope stated in his Christmas address to cardinals that “in the 1970’s pedophilia was theorized [by the church] as something fully in conformity with man and even with children.”

At first I considered this an unbelievable and outrageous statement so far beyond the norm and offered as an absurd justification for child sex abuse. Now I’m not so sure.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a story entitled Preaching Virtue of Spanking, Even as Deaths Fuel Debate. The piece reviews the teachings of Michael Pearl, an evangelical Christian minister whose fast selling publications advocate systematic use of “the rod” to teach toddlers to submit to authority. The methods, seen as common sense by some grateful parents and as horrific by others, are modeled, Mr. Pearl is fond of saying, on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”

According to the New York Times:

Debate over the Pearls’ teachings, first seen on Christian Web sites, gained new intensity after the death of a third child, all allegedly at the hands of parents who kept the Pearls’ book, “To Train Up a Child,” in their homes. On Sept. 29, the parents were charged with homicide by abuse.

More than 670,000 copies of the Pearls’ self-published book are in circulation, and it is especially popular among Christian home-schoolers, who praise it in their magazines and on their Web sites. The Pearls provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months to discourage misbehavior and describe how to make use of implements for hitting on the arms, legs or back, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line that, Mr. Pearl notes, “can be rolled up and carried in your pocket.”

The furor in part reflects societal disagreements over corporal punishment, which conservative Christians say is called for in the Bible and which many Americans consider reasonable up to a point, even as many parents and pediatricians reject it. The issue flared recently when a video was posted online of a Texas judge whipping his daughter.

Sadly, adopted children are frequently fatal victims of the Pearls’ teachings. The New York Times highlights three such cases. There are undoubtedly many more.

Which brings me back to the Pope. If taken at face value and believed as absolute truth, misguided ill-intentioned “theories” (especially those theories which are backed by G-d) can have devastating consequences for children. Add to the mix internationally adopted children and pathological parents, and the result is often abuse, exploitation and death.

The belief, so frankly expressed by the Pope, that abuse is somehow “natural” or that “it’s good for them,” is a classic method of normalizing and rationalizing physical and sexual abuse. This is exactly how pedophiles and child molesters groom their victims. These dogmatic beliefs—whether Catholic, Evangelical or pedophilogical—are one in the same; justification and rationalization of systematic child abuse and exploitation.

Just ask Rita Swan, whose pioneering work to eliminate religion-based medical neglect (which often leads to death), has brought her into conflict with the powerful but marginal Christian Science religion. Rita, a former Christian Science adherent, founded CHILD after she lost her own only child to a routine illness which Christian Science prayers failed to cure.

Why is it acceptable to be easily outraged by a Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure while To Train Up a Child engenders thoughtful analysis and scholarly debate (even legal justification like this "academic" article in the Akron Law Review). After all, both were for sale on Amazon along with the sexually graphic book by Peter Sotos celebrating Masha Allen’s abuse and exploitation as the world’s first child porn star.

There are dozens of Facebook groups for parents who "spank," along with pictures and techniques. There are many more sites, both overt and covert, offering how-tos on child sex abuse and child pornography.

In today’s op-ed entitled The Molester Next Door, columnist Frank Bruni writes:

The longest, most exhaustively researched article I ever wrote for a newspaper or magazine was about a child molester who had sexually abused a little boy living down the street. The abuse went on for more than two years, beginning when the boy was 10.

This molester had a job. A house. A wife. Two kids of his own. And he gained access to his victim not through brute force but through patience, play and gifts: help with his homework, computer games, a new bike. To neighborhood observers, including the victim’s parents, the molester’s attentiveness passed for kindness, at least for a while. A molester’s behavior very often does.

This is something that has come up repeatedly over decades—I wrote that article back in 1991, for The Detroit Free Press—but that remains tough to accept: the predator to watch out for is less likely to don a trench coat and lurk behind a bush than to wear a clerical collar and stand near the altar or to hold a stopwatch and walk the sidelines. And he (or, for that matter, she) works with children as a function of being drawn to them for reasons beyond their welfare.

Amen Frank Bruni. Of course we know this troubling fact (at least if you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time), but over and over again we choose to ignore it. It is the same thinking that allows us to accept what the Pope revealed or what the Pearls espouse. Write it down and it has power. Explain it away and people accept it. Enshrine it in a belief system and it’s unstoppable.

Without lawyers they can count on (at least in Colorado), peers they can turn to (at least in school), and fair and timely redress in the criminal court system (restitution denied), all children—and especially child victims—face an uncertain fate and treacherous future. Maybe the little girl with the knife has the right idea after all. Now all she needs is someone like the NRA to come to her rescue!

Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the attorney-client privilege does not apply to conversations between guardians ad litem and the children they represent in child abuse, child welfare and custody cases. In Colorado, a guardian ad litem is an attorney appointed to represent a child who has been abused or neglected or is in foster care. They are also appointed for children are accused of crimes or involved in a custody fight.

In a very controversial 5-2 decision, the Court held that “because a child who is the subject of a dependency and neglect proceeding is not the client of a court-appointed guardian ad litem, neither the statutory attorney-client privilege nor ethical rules governing an attorney’s obligations of confidentiality to a client strictly apply to communications by the child.”

Justice Nathan Coats, writing for the majority, found that a guardian ad litem does not represent litigants on opposite sides of a case “or even the demands or wishes of the child. … The guardian ad litem is statutorily tasked with assessing and making recommendations to the court concerning the best interests of the child.”

The underlying case, People v. Gabriesheski, involved a man criminally charged with abusing his step-daughter. While that case was pending, the department of human services filed a case in juvenile court and an attorney was appointed as guardian ad litem to represent the child victim. During the criminal case, the prosecutors attempted to call the GAL to testify about her private conversations with the victim. Both lower courts held that the conversations between the victim and her GAL were protected by attorney-client privilege.

The Supreme Court reversed, basing its decision on the duty of a child's attorney to protect his or her client from abuse; a lawyer acting as a guardian ad litem is supposed to help the court act in the child's best interest even if the child doesn't want the lawyer to reveal information.

The dissent wrote that “the majority's decision deprives children of the right to legal representation. … the impact of this decision will have devastating effects on the ability of guardians ad litem to fully represent the best interests of children in dependency and neglect proceedings. Because children will no longer have the protection of the attorney-client privilege, guardians ad litem will be required to disclose information about their wards even when it is not in the child's best interests to do so. This outcome, which appears to be based on a generalization that a child is incapable of being involved in the legal process, is at odds with a child's fundamental right to be represented in court, and fails to protect the legal rights of children.”

The Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center, a nonprofit organization that provides legal advocacy for abused and neglected children in Colorado, stated that “this decision denies children in the Colorado child protection system effective legal representation by depriving them of the opportunity to have confidential conversations with the attorneys appointed to protect their best interests. The Colorado Supreme Court has decided that abused children are not entitled to one of the most basic benefits of legal representation, which is having a trusting, confidential relationship with an attorney.”

Jeff Koy, the director of litigation of the Children’s Law Center, who has served as a court-appointed GAL for more than 12 years, argued in this case that conversations between GALs and children should be protected. “Children have a right to be in a safe home and receive the treatment services they need. GALs are charged with ensuring that children are provided these protections. To do this effectively, children must be able to trust us,” said Koy. “They have to be able to confide in us about where they feel safe and what happened to them without fear of having their confidences betrayed. Otherwise, the very people who abused them may learn what the child said.”

“The children we represent have often been through horrific abuse before landing in state care,” Koy said. “They need someone to confide in. Until today, that person was their GAL.”

The old adage “hard cases make bad law” rings especially true in this case. As a longtime victim's advocate and even longer-time children's advocate, the tension between what's best for your client and what should be done to keep your client healthy and safe thankfully does not often conflict. When it does, however, the implications can be far-reaching.

Many years ago I represented an eleven year old child in exactly the same situation. After an immigrant girl was removed from her home for alleged physical abuse, I was appointed as her “law guardian.” At that time the GAL role was ill-defined and unclear. My client denied the abuse and wanted desperately to return to her family.

When the judge asked me for my recommendation, I stated emphatically that my client wanted to return home. When pressed further, I informed that court that I was not personally or professionally taking a position on whether or not she should return home, but instead informing the court of my client's expressed wishes. I explained that I had interviewed my client, her teachers and family friends; that my client was mature enough to have a position; that she understood the consequences of her decision; that she expressed her wishes to me clearly and repeatedly; that I was my client's only voice in the court system and felt compelled to advocate for her expressed wishes and not her “best interests.”

Reluctantly, the court turned to the child welfare agency which was unable to substantiate any of the abuse charges and the case was dismissed allowing my client to return home.

I'm not sure how I would have handled the case if my client told me she was being abused. Understanding what I now know about victims, I can appreciate the fact that children rarely disclose physical and sexual abuse and when they do they should be believed.

When children do disclose such things to their attorney-GAL, there are legitimate and ethical ways to address any real or perceived conflict. The child's attorney can ask that a GAL be appointed to represent the child's best interest. The child's attorney can ask the court to permit withdrawal based on “irreconcilable differences” which make the attorney-client relationship is unsustainable. The child's attorney can counsel the client to an end result which keeps the client safe and preserves confidences.

What makes this case so unsettling is that the Colorado Supreme Court is directly requesting that an attorney reveal client confidences. This case is not about a “recommendation” or a request for “the child's best interest.” It is a direct invasion into the relationship between the child and her attorney. It goes far beyond defining the role of an attorney-GAL to assaulting the very foundation of the now non-existent attorney-client relationship.

The Colorado Supreme Court's decision strips a child from ANY advocate in the court system. It applies not only to sexual abuses cases, but to all cases involving a child including custody, child welfare and even criminal cases. Imagine a juvenile delinquency case in which the prosecutor can force the child's attorney to testify against his or her client. Imagine a child custody case in which a parent can force a child's GAL to testify about which parent the child prefers.

The Court's decision here has far-reaching implications. It was ill-advised, ill-conceived and vastly over-broad. In solving one perceived problem (after all, we don't know that the child client in this case told her attorney anything about the sexual abuse), it creates an untold number of complications with the end-result that children in the Colorado court system no longer have reliable advocates or an unconstrained voice.

According to the Children's Bureau Express, the recently signed Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, make it easier for school districts to enroll foster children for free school meals. Children in foster care are now automatically eligible to receive free school meals, regardless of household income, and they can remain enrolled for the entire school year, even if they leave foster care during the year. Because of this, the process of school districts enrolling foster children into this program is simplified.

An article written by Nate Frentz and Zoe Neuberger for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities covers six tips on how to take advantage of this new Act, so that families can receive the best opportunities possible:

• Directly certify children in foster care for free school meals by matching data from foster care agencies or a court with student data.
• Use the notification that schools receive from child welfare caseworkers or a court of a child's foster status to certify the child for free school meals.
• Revise school meals applications to reflect the categorical eligibility of children in foster care for free school meals and the potential benefit to the foster family of including children in foster care on the same school meals application as other children in the household.
• Notify foster parents that their children in foster care are eligible for free school meals and explain how to apply for benefits.
• Maintain certification when a child in foster care changes schools by transferring the certification for free meals to the new school.
• Relieve foster families of paperwork if an application with a child in foster care is selected for verification by obtaining documentation of the child's foster care status directly from a foster care agency or court (or by allowing foster parents to provide contact information for an appropriate third party who can verify the child's foster status, such as a social worker).

The full article, Six Ways that States and School Districts Can Make It Easier for Children in Foster Care to Get Free Meals at School, can be found here on the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities website.

Last spring, the Brooklyn district attorney took the unprecedented step of charging NY child welfare supervisor Chereece Bell with criminally negligent homicide. This is just one of a few cases nationwide where child welfare workers have been charged with a criminal act for doing--or not doing--their job.

In June 2010, Philadelphia caseworkers Julius Juma Murray, Miriam Coulibaly and others pleaded guilty or were found guilty of fabricating reports and destroying documents to hide the fact that caseworkers skipped hundreds of home visits to dozens of clients, including 14-year-old Danieal Kelly who starved to death in 2006.

New York Magazine recently wrote a thoughtfully nuanced profile of Chereece Bell and the difficult choices she faced while doing her job in one of New York City's toughest neighborhoods.

The decision to arrest two ACS workers all but guarantees headlines for the D.A.’s office. As far as anyone knows, this marks the first time in New York City history that child-welfare workers have been indicted in connection with the death of a child on their caseload. Bell and Adams appear all over the media: local TV news, the tabloids, the front page of the New York Times. In all the photos, they look sullen and sleep-deprived—every bit the stereotypical tabloid criminals.

By the afternoon of March 23, Chereece Bell—mom of two, graduate of Brooklyn College, onetime city supervisor—has tumbled to the bottom of the city’s social ladder, joining that sorry parade of accused criminals being led out of the courthouse and onto buses bound for Rikers Island. Never mind that she doesn’t know exactly why she is being taken to jail. Nor does she understand how she could be charged with the murder of a girl she never met. But those questions will have to wait. First, she has a more urgent problem: figuring out how to make her $25,000 bail, so she can get back home to her children.

…

In many ways, the job of caseworker had become a writing job. Caseworkers are supposed to document everything they do: every phone call, every visit to a family, every conversation with a doctor or teacher or neighbor. There are so many cases coming in—and there’s so much writing to do for each one—that it seemed almost everyone was behind on their paperwork, sometimes weeks behind. To try to stay on top of their cases, workers ate lunch at their desks, stayed at the office until 7 or 8 p.m., and logged in from home.

…

One of the toughest parts of Bell’s job was figuring out which cases were so serious that the kids needed to be taken from their parents. If possible, it’s always best to keep a family intact, but she could never know for sure what happened in a household after one of her caseworkers walked out the door. This was the most maddening part of the job: Even if you clocked 60 or more hours a week, even if you managed to keep track of every case, there was simply no way to stop every parent hellbent on scalding—or killing—their kid. As Bell puts it, “You don’t have any real control over human behavior.”

Read this entire excellent article here.

If you don't have time to read, then at least listen to the NPR interview of the article's author, Jennifer Gonnerman, here.

After you've finished, come back here to post your comments.

Last month the New Jersey Supreme Court in Dept of Children & Families, Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. T.B. held that a finding of neglect was improperly entered against a mother who left her four-year-old child unsupervised for two hours under the mistaken belief that his grandmother was in the home.

Susan and her then four-year-old-son, John, were living with Susan’s mother, Mary, and step-father, Jim, who assisted in caring for John on a regular basis. Although Susan and John lived downstairs, the entire house was accessible to John and he moved freely to the upstairs portion of the home where his grandparents lived.

On Sunday, March 25, 2007, Susan and John returned home between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Susan immediately put John to bed and, with the belief that Mary was home, went to eat dinner with a friend. Susan believed that Mary was home sleeping because she saw Mary’s car in the driveway; Mary had been ill all week with the flu; Mary was always home on Sunday nights to prepare for work on Monday morning; and Jim worked on Sunday nights.

Mary, however, was not home because she and Jim took an impromptu trip to New York. Shortly after 9:00 p.m., John woke up and discovered that he was alone. He left the house, crossed the street, and told his neighbor that he could not find his mother. The police department was contacted. When Susan returned from dinner between 9:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. she was transported to the police station, where she gave a handwritten statement.

Mary and Jim returned from New York and attested to the impromptu nature of their trip and that Mary is always home on Sunday nights. No criminal charges were filed against Susan and the matter was turned over to DYFS.

DYFS substantiated the neglect allegation against Susan based upon inadequate supervision under New Jersey law.

Susan filed an appeal and the matter was referred to the Office of Administrative Law. After a hearing, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) recommended dismissal of the charges against Susan, concluding that DYFS did not prove by a preponderance of evidence that the physical, mental, or emotional condition of Susan’s child was impaired or was in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of her failure to exercise a minimum degree of care.

The DYFS Director rejected the ALJ’s decision and reinstated DYFS’s finding substantiating child neglect against Susan. The DYFS Director observed that Susan failed to take the cautionary actions of supervision that are expected and, although John was not harmed, the omission exposed him to a substantial risk of harm.

The Appellate Division affirmed. The Appellate Division was satisfied that sufficient credible evidence existed in the record to support the Director’s finding that Susan failed to exercise the minimum degree of care required under New Jersey law and concluded that Susan had placed John at substantial risk of harm by failing to ensure that her mother or step-father was at home before leaving the house.

The New Jersey Supreme Court granted Susan’s petition for certification.

The Court held that Susan did not fail to “exercise a minimum degree of care” under New Jersey law because her conduct did not rise to the level of gross negligence or recklessness. Therefore, her name must be removed from the Child Abuse Registry.

The Court explained that Susan’s conduct did not constitute a failure to “exercise a minimum degree of care.” Susan did not leave her son at home alone knowing there was no adult supervision.

Instead, Susan, who lived with her parents and is intimately familiar with the rhythms of their every-day-family-life, arrived at her home on a Sunday night and saw her mother’s car in the driveway. She knew that her mother was always home on Sunday nights and that her mother had been ill all week with the flu. Further, her mother and step-father attested that Susan’s mother is always home on Sunday nights and that the trip to New York was unexpected. What occurred was totally out of the ordinary.

The Court concluded that although Susan’s failure to perform the cautionary act of assuring her mother’s presence was clearly negligent, under all of the circumstances known to her it did not rise to the level of gross negligence or recklessness.

I first wrote about the disturbing case of adoptive parent Judith Leekin back in 2008. Now new details of that case are emerging which share shocking similarities to Masha Allen's second adoption. According to the New York Times:

More than 30 years ago, a Queens foster mother was investigated and cited for scalding a boy in her care. But despite that finding, the city did nothing in the decades that followed to prevent the woman, Judith Leekin, from carrying out one of the most brazen and disturbing child welfare schemes in recent memory.

The failure of child welfare officials to bar Ms. Leekin from the system after that 1980 episode is one of the most striking revelations in new court reports filed in a Brooklyn lawsuit. Ms. Leekin was arrested in 2007; the authorities determined she had adopted 11 disabled New York foster children using aliases, then moved to Florida, where she subjected them to years of abuse — all the while collecting $1.68 million in subsidies from New York City until 2007.

The 1980 episode, for example, occurred at Ms. Leekin’s home on 226th Street in Laurelton, Queens, the reports show. When Ms. Leekin later adopted 11 children under four aliases over an eight-year period, she listed the same address; it was never cross-checked, the reports say.

The documents include a deposition by Ms. Leekin, taken in a Fort Lauderdale prison, in which she suggests a possible motive for her use of false identities: her concern that she would be linked to the 1980 abuse episode.

In court documents, they depict Ms. Leekin as a sophisticated serial criminal whose extraordinary scheme fooled varied professionals and could not have been foreseen or detected, given the practices and capabilities of the time.

In a jailhouse deposition in October, she came across as defensive and combative as she admitted hitting children as punishment, the 184-page transcript shows. She acknowledged being the subject of the early abuse report, and conceded she “probably” later used aliases out of concern that the earlier episode would have otherwise surfaced.

But she said that as she began adopting children under aliases — “Anne Marie Williams,” “Cheryl Graham,” “Michelle Wells” and “Eastlyn Giraud” — she was never asked for her passport, birth certificate or any other form of identification.

“Yes, I did some wrong things, sir, but they didn’t do their investigation,” she said, adding she had been made “a scapegoat.”

“They had references. Did they check out the references? No,” Ms. Leekin said. “You convicted me. You sentenced me. And now you want to come here to get a deposition from me, for what? The city has to take some kind of responsibility.”

Throughout the process, Ms. Leekin offered conflicting or false responses when asked about her employment history, income, education, assets and religion.

Mr. Safarik, the other plaintiff’s expert, wrote: “Had the defendants simply verified the self-reported information, her lies would have been uncovered.”

Read the entire story here.

Today's New York Times contains an article about state child welfare investigations of parents who legally possess marijuana:

The police found about 10 grams of marijuana, or about a third of an ounce, when they searched Penelope Harris’s apartment in the Bronx last year. The amount was below the legal threshold for even a misdemeanor, and prosecutors declined to charge her. But Ms. Harris, a mother whose son and niece were home when she was briefly in custody, could hardly rest easy.

The police had reported her arrest to the state’s child welfare hot line, and city caseworkers quickly arrived and took the children away.

Her son, then 10, spent more than a week in foster care. Her niece, who was 8 and living with her as a foster child, was placed in another home and not returned by the foster care agency for more than a year. Ms. Harris, 31, had to weather a lengthy child neglect inquiry, though she had no criminal record and had never before been investigated by the child welfare authorities, Ms. Harris and her lawyer said.

“I felt like less of a parent, like I had failed my children,” Ms. Harris said. “It tore me up.”

Hundreds of New Yorkers who have been caught with small amounts of marijuana, or who have simply admitted to using it, have become ensnared in civil child neglect cases in recent years, though they did not face even the least of criminal charges, according to city records and defense lawyers. A small number of parents in these cases have even lost custody of their children.

New York City’s child welfare agency said that it was pursuing these cases for appropriate reasons, and that marijuana use by parents could often hint at other serious problems in the way they cared for their children.

Is this good case work or child protection overkill?

Now consider this. Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided in Dougherty v. City of Covina that a warrant to search a suspected child molester's computer was illegal when the only evidence linking the suspect to possession of child pornography was the experience of the requesting police officer.

In other words, while NYC caseworkers have lawful authority to remove kids from parents who possess legal amounts of marijuana based solely on their training and experience, law enforcement officials cannot search the computers of suspected child molesters based solely on their training and experience.

Should child welfare case workers be governed by the same Fourth Amendment constraints as law enforcement officers? Should a case worker be allowed to search the computers of suspected child sex abusers without a warrant? Is searching a computer any different from searching a refrigerator and finding a small amount of marijuana?