While presidential candidates prepare unreadable position papers and deliver sound-bite-driven “policy speeches” about lofty issues like universal health care (Obama) and technology (Hillary), children are being murdered in our nation’s cities — and no one is doing anything about it.
The latest revelation of age-related genocide comes from the “City of Brotherly Love.” The Philadelphia media reported today that while under the “care” of the city’s Division of Human Services, 52 children died. Twenty of those children were murdered. Dozens more were abused. Twelve died because they were accidentally suffocated in their sleep by an adult.
According to the report, city pathologists could not determine the cause of death for eight other children, but seven of these had previously been beaten up or injured in intentional assaults.
A panel that reviewed the deaths said that “preventable deaths were the worst result of widespread inadequacies: confusion about when a child was in danger, too few meetings with children, supervisors who failed to supervise, and arbitrary decision-making.”
Is the city bureaucracy, via its cadre of poorly-trained, poorly-supervised, and incompetent social workers, responsible for the murder of these children?
Read this indictment of the remarkable ineptitude behind this tragedy: “Of the 52 deaths, DHS had no files for five victims. Two files had been expunged; three had been lost. The remaining files were often a jumbled and mislabled mess in which some documents were duplicated and others missing entirely. Case information was ‘disorganized, internally inconsistent and incomplete,’ the panel found. “
More information about this DHS report can be found here.
Hillary, Obama, Edwards, all you bleeding heart liberals out there, if you really “care about the children,” then you will call for more than just a paper review of this genocide, which is all this report does. It reviews the paperwork. Those kids deserve more. Someone needs to be held responsible. The social workers, their bosses, and, ultimately, Mayor John Street.
Nothing will change until the people we entrust to look after the poorest of our children believe that the world cares about what they are doing — and not doing.
Let’s see who really cares about this nation’s kids.
5 responses so far ↓
New Hampshire DHHS stiffs treatment centers for abused kids. « A Rake’s Progress // June 16, 2007 at 12:16 pm
[...] Hillary Clinton, Philadelphia, Child abuse, Politics. trackback A few weeks ago we wrote about the tragic conditions in Philadelphia, where 52 kids had either been murdered or were abused and died under questionable [...]
teresa dimitri // July 26, 2007 at 12:57 pm
As a social worker, let’s also talk about the lack of funding to hire more workers because the current ones have an overwhelming case load. Not to take responsibility off of the workers that do perform poorly but I know many times I was over loaded running from morning til night trying to cover my case load. Trying to visit homes, schools, and doctors for each family plus the paperwork required and let’s not forget hours and hours sitting at court. Also, we are the ones in the court room getting paid the least but the most is expected of us.
Rake Morgan // July 26, 2007 at 1:24 pm
In the DHS case discussed in the local papers, the social workers — being a professional, highly-educated group — should have found some form of civil disobedience to bring the situation to the public’s attention and force the pols to save the children. It would have taken some courage and risk, but sitting back and complaining about being short-handed was — and this is obvious — just not enough, was it? Kids died as a result.
I do thank you for taking the time to comment. It is good to hear from someone familiar with some of the specifics.
In Washington the “system” murders four more children. « A Rake’s Progress // January 11, 2008 at 4:28 pm
[...] summer we had the horrific story from Philadelphia in which 52 children died while under the care of the city Division of Human [...]
“Social worker abuse” and four children dead in Washington, D.C. « A Rake’s Progress // January 14, 2008 at 2:20 pm
[...] Washington the “system” murders four more children. Philadelphia DHS and 52 dead children. All physical discipline of children is a form of [...]
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