It's a damn time. It is the first to be said about thearrest for the murder of Julicia Batties by her mother Navasia Jones and her half-brother Paul Fein Jr. A 7-year-old girl findsbeaten anddead in the Bronx apartment in Jones. And it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who was responsible.
According to the district attorney, Fine assaulted her between August 8 and August 10, and Jones could not get her medical assistance while her daughter died. was. Her beating was terrible, damaging her internal organs and inflicting a bruise on her entire body. Oh, she was also sexually abused.
But even if Jones and Fine spend the rest of their lives in jail, there's still a lot to do to fix Julisia's failed system.
Mothers' reports of abuse began when the child was only a few days old. Her mother had already lost custody of her other four children by the time Julicia entered the world. She lived with her maternal grandmother — until a judge in her family court sent her home easily. The agency appealed to this decision, one of the only signs that someone in the Children's Service Department was looking for Julicia's interests rather than her mother.
"Until her mother can successfully deal with and admit the situation that led to the removal of other children," the appellate judge wrote that she "disagrees" with the return of Julicia. rice field. According to the family court, it does not present an imminent risk.
What happened to overturn that decision in 2021 .. Apart from her affectionate grandmother who raised her from an early age to take this girl, she reunited her Julicia with her mother (a heartwarming word like a death sentence).
ACS says Jones has completed the mandated parenting and "anger management" classes. These were because police were called to the mother's apartment at least six times in the last three years while she was "rehab" (including at least one time she lied to the police about Julicia's injury). It might have been speculated that the class wasn't working.
But even a report by Julicia's black-eyed neighbor four days before her death was not enough to convince caseworkers that their reunification plan was unsuccessful. ..
And while Jones and Fine are clearly responsible for her death, ACS needs to do some serious soul quest. And don't let Julicia just tell them that they "passed through the crack." Julicia is one of a series of other child deaths in the past year in which abuse and neglect have been repeatedly reported to neighbors, teachers and even authorities by police.
* 1 year oldLegacy Bowfordisby the hands of her mother's boyfriend, a violent ferron who had previously caught the attention of the authorities. } Allegedly killed.
* 4-year-oldJaycee Eubanks is allegedly beaten to death by her stepfatherafter a child's day care reported a bruise to ACS.
* 10-year-oldAydenWolfe is in the hands of her mother's boyfriend, who was arrested three months before Ayden's death on suspicion of choking her mother. Was found dead in. His 6-year-old autistic son watching a child. After being banned from contact with the woman, he began to live with Aiden's mother, who also had contact with ACS.
And it's not just New York City. This week, Mercury News announced that a mother and her mother's boyfriend had killed 8-year-old Sophia Masonin California earlier this spring. Eight separate surveys by child welfare workers at the request of relatives and other professionals found no cause for concern.
We know who these parents are, what they are doing, or what other adults are allowing their children to do. So why are we making them stop it?
For years, the general public has been told that ACS does not have enough resources and has too many children to track. Three years ago, ACS Commissioner David Hansell told a local television station that "the average case load has dropped by about half from 14.8 files per employee to 7.2 files." Last summer, the case load was 5.9 when Julicia's call for help was ignored. Is it true that I can't ask a caseworker to monitor six children?
Of course not. These deaths are the result of deliberate policies implemented by ACS leaders and other child welfare agencies across the country. These so-called experts have decided that children should always be with their parents, even if they have a long history of harming them and other children.
The ideology of family protection and family reintegration is that these adults need a little re-education and a little more money in their pockets, and then they are safe. Children who are supposed to be able to take care of them. It assumes that abusive parents should be given a second chance over the years. And when we take black children out of the house, we assume that it is due to systematic racism.
These are mythical and dangerous. They are not only run by scholars like Dorothy Roberts, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and activist groups like the upEND movement for "total elimination of the existing family police system." They are also endorsed by wealthy foundations such as the Casey Family Program and now federal officials.
Aisha Shomberg, who worked at ACS until joining the Biden administration last year, recently compared child welfare caseworkers to "plantation opponents" and told the public not to call child protection services. I advised. Located in the door and tunnel of child welfare, from which they may never see their way.
I think it's systematic racism to drive a disproportionate number of black children out of the house. How do you explain that a black child like Julicia is three times more likely to die of abuse than a white child? The danger to these children comes from parents who cannot or do not keep them away from harm and bureaucrats who are blind to politics and unable to save them.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, "There is no way to treat children: Foster care systems, family courts, and racial activists are destroying young lives. The author of "Method".
