Social Worker Justice – going to jail for CPS
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 ...
Child Pornography Victims Abandoned at the Supreme Court
Last week, the Solicitor General filed this brief with the United States Supreme Court which effectively denies child victims the ability to obtain criminal restitution from the thousands of child molesters and pedophiles who collect and share child pornography.
The defendant in the case currently pending before the Supreme Court, Amy v. Monzel, admitted to law enforcement that he sexually abused his granddaughter and traded images of girls being sexually abused. A search of his home uncovered more than 800 child sex abuse images including pictures of Amy, the victim in ...
Hacking Child Pornography
A new front has opened in the battle to control child pornography on the internet. Members of the Anonymous hacktivist movement have recently taken down more than 40 secret child-pornography websites and revealed the names of more than 1,500 members of one of the illegal sites.
According to Security News Daily:
The Anonymous campaign began Oct. 14, when members of the hacktivist group found a cache of child-pornography websites while browsing a secret website called the Hidden Wiki, a guidebook to hundreds of underground websites invisible to search engines and ...
Adopting Your Enemies’ Children
Today's New York Times discusses the use of adoption as an act of war in Argentina during the dictatorship of the 1970s when the nation’s top military leaders engaged in a systematic plan to steal babies from perceived enemies of the government.
BUENOS AIRES — Victoria Montenegro recalls a childhood filled with chilling dinnertime discussions. Lt. Col. Hernán Tetzlaff, the head of the family, would recount military operations he had taken part in where “subversives” had been tortured or killed. The discussions often ended with his “slamm...
Children’s Law Center – Helping Children Soar
Clients of Children's Law Center talk about why they needed help from our lawyers and what they were able to achieve together. This video premiered at the annual Helping Children Soar Benefit on September 21, 2011 and focuses on CLC's adoption and guardianship work creating forever families. Visit www.childrenslawcenter.org for more information.
International Adoption: it’s even more complicated than you thought
From today's New York Times, a followup to their August article on international adoption trafficking.
But many parents saw China as the cleanest of international adoption choices. Its population-control policy, which limited many families to one child, drove couples to abandon subsequent children or to give up daughters in hopes of bearing sons to inherit their property and take care of them in old age. China had what adoptive parents in America wanted: a supply of healthy children in need of families.
As Mr. Mayer reasoned, “If anything, the number of children ...
Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World
An excellent article in today's New York Times about the challenges and promises decades of special education have delivered for autistic children.
People with autism, whose unusual behaviors are believed to stem from variations in early brain development, typically disappear from public view after they leave school. As few as one in 10 hold even part-time jobs. Some live in state-supported group homes; even those who attend college often end up unemployed and isolated, living with parents.
But Justin is among the first generation of autistic youths who have benefited ...