System Is Failing Abused Children
Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan Brown is right. We should be alarmed. (“O.C. Juvenile Crime Stats Leap in 1995,” March 26). He states, “We have an obligation to protect our children.” But that is exactly what the courts and district attorneys are not doing!
Statewide, court officers and court-appointed children’s attorneys are not protecting children. Children are being returned daily to drug-addicted and abusive parents in the name of “family reunification,” and we, the taxpayers, are paying for parenting classes, drug rehabilitation, housing and more.
The parent often complies minimally or not at all with court orders, and still the child is returned, abuse reoccurs and the cycle starts all over.
We are really setting children up. From the time they are very small, we are putting out the message that children should tell if they are being abused and keep telling until someone believes them! Children have learned this lesson well. What they don’t understand is that our system of justice will not believe them, the district attorneys will not prosecute, attorneys will call them liars and, in a horrendous number of cases, “justice” will return them to the abuser, they will be hurt again and return to the system!
If we do not start to protect these most vulnerable of victims--our babies and children--how can we expect anything but more violence and more jails in our future?
SUSAN ELLINGSON
President, California chapter,
Justice for Children
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