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Eldorado, Texas-- Protection Racket, They didn’t do it for the children.



 
 
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Old May 24th 08, 07:10 AM posted to alt.support.child-protective-services,alt.support.foster-parents,alt.dads-rights.unmoderated,alt.parenting.spanking
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Default Eldorado, Texas-- Protection Racket, They didn’t do it for the children.

Protection Racket
They didn’t do it for the children.

By Timothy Lynch

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...YyM2NlODAzZmI=

Court proceedings are underway in Texas to sort out the controversial
seizure of 465 children from the religious sect near Eldorado. A Texas
appeals court ruled Thursday that Texas’s Child Protective Services
(CPS) failed to justify the seizure of the very young children and
teenage boys. The Court said there was simply “no evidence” of immediate
danger to them. More legal challenges are expected to follow.

To understand the stakes involved, it will be useful revisit some of the
key events and claims.

Culture shock is not a crime. Today marriage and child bearing are
commonly delayed into one’s 30s, so there was some culture shock when
the news broke about a raid on a religious sect where teen pregnancy was
reportedly the norm. Texas law-enforcement officials may recoil from
such behavior but it cannot send agents out on a whim to enforce a new
set of rules.


The Mormon splinter group, known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), moved to Texas precisely because the
state’s marriage laws were amenable to their religious beliefs. In 2004,
the year FLDS members moved to Eldorado, Texas law allowed girls as
young as 14 to marry with the permission of their parents. In 2005,
Texas lawmakers heeded the advice of Utah Attorney General Mark
Shurtleff to raise the minimum age that minors with parents’ permission
can marry from 14 to 16. Shurtleff had experience dealing with FLDS
communities in Utah. Texas also upgraded the penalties for bigamy from a
misdemeanor to felony. There is nothing untoward about that — so long as
those new laws are applied prospectively.

A Presumption of Guilt. Six weeks have now passed since the April 3 raid
on the FLDS ranch and there have been no arrests for child abuse or
child rape. The raid was prompted by an anonymous phone call by a lady
named “Sarah.” “Sarah” claimed that she was 16, that she lived at the
FLDS ranch in Eldorado, that she was forced into a marriage with a much
older man by the name of Dale Barlow, that she had one eight-month-old
child and that she was pregnant again. Texas CPS executed a search
warrant at the ranch but could not find “Sarah” or Dale Barlow. Police
now believe that the phone call was a hoax by a woman in Colorado who
has a history of submitting false reports. Dale Barlow was found in
Arizona. He has been interviewed by investigators, but Texas has chosen
not to have Barlow arrested even though they had an arrest warrant for
him when the initial raid took place.


Texas CPS officials now stress that the seizure of the children is a
“civil” matter unrelated to the raid and that the constitutional
safeguards that pertain to criminal investigations do not apply. FLDS
parents and their appointed lawyers were initially bewildered by the
Kafkaesque manner of Texas’s “child removal” proceedings. The
presumption of innocence was turned on its head, which means the parents
were expected to prove a negative — that they committed no crime. Until
yesterday’s ruling, CPS had been able to whimsically thwart any
challenge to its authority. Some parents, for example, have tried to
present government documentation, such as birth certificates and drivers
licenses, to show they have violated no marriage law so that they could
retrieve their children. Unacceptable, said CPS. When some mothers
sought to meet with their attorneys before police interviews, CPS
informed the mothers that if they left the shelter for such an
appointment, they would not be able to rejoin their children, which are
in CPS custody.


Every Child Supposedly in Danger. Most Americans are under the mistaken
impression that Texas authorities have seized 465 children because of
obvious criminality. Not so. Since the children are healthy, CPS has not
accused any FLDS parent with neglect. And since boys and baby girls have
been taken into custody, CPS could not possibly argue that those
children are in danger of rape or a forced marriage. Instead, CPS claims
the belief system of the FLDS religion with respect to women and child
bearing constitutes a “pervasive pattern and practice” of abuse that
poses a risk of emotional abuse to all children, including, apparently,
infants. Had CPS simply taken 20 teenage girls into state custody as its
investigation continued, there would have been no uproar. However, the
seizure of every single child has now prompted the Texas appellate
courts to step in and slam the brakes on what is now the largest custody
battle in American history.

CPS Mistreatment of the Children. FLDS members have bitterly complained
about their treatment by CPS. When CPS denies the validity of those
complaints, it is difficult for outside observers to draw any
conclusions. However, thanks to John Kight, who is chairman of an
organization that provided mental health workers to assist CPS care for
the mothers and hundreds of children who were moved to shelters, we have
some objective eyewitness reports that Kight has released to the press.



What these social workers have reported is deeply disturbing. One worker
wrote, “On the awful day that they separated the mothers and children
the level of cruelty and lack of respect for human rights was
overwhelming. Crying, begging children were ripped away from their
devastated mothers and the mothers were put on buses to either return to
the ranch or to go to shelters. Most went to shelters because they were
told they would be able to see their children if they did not return to
the ranch. This, of course, was another [CPS] lie.”


Another worker observed “one male child, who was about 9 years old,
broke away from the rest of the children who were all hurtled together,
being comforted by each other, and walked up to a police officer. I
heard him say, ‘You’re the police, help us. Help me get my mother back.
She has done nothing wrong.’” Another worker concluded her report with
this: “Never in all my life, and I am one of the older ladies, have I
been so ashamed of being a Texan and seeing what and how our government
agencies treat people.”

Legal precedent will go beyond FLDS members. Child removal is necessary
in certain circumstances, but it is a drastic step. Unfortunately, the
prevailing attitude in many jurisdictions seems to be that child removal
is a risk-free way of erring on the side of safety. Not so. However
well-meaning social workers may be, families are too often destroyed by
the emotional and financial strain of state intervention.


The children suffer the most, of course. Sadly, they just cannot
comprehend why their parents, their guardians, could have “let this
happen to us.” To be sure, the FLDS culture poses some challenges to
CPS, but such challenges cannot justify the imposition of a presumption
of guilt. To protect the innocent, we must make sure CPS agents present
clear evidence in every single case.

— Timothy Lynch is director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal
Justice.







An Inconvenient Truth about Child Protective Services, Foster care, and
the Child Protection "INDUSTRY"

Child Protective Services Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of CPS.

every parent should read the free handbook from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

Perpetrators of Maltreatment

Physical Abuse CPS/Foster care 160, biological Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS/Foster care 112, biological Parents 13
Neglect CPS/Foster care 410, biological Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS/Foster care 14 biological Parents 12
Fatalities CPS/Foster care 6.4, biological Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.

THIS IS AMERICA'S HIDDEN HOLOCAUST

Currently Child Protective Services violates more constitutionally
guaranteed liberties & civil rights on a daily basis then all other
agencies combined, Including the National Security agency/Central
intelligence agency wiretaping programs…

THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES
BY: Nancy Schaefer Senator, 50th District of Georgia

http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/...s.php?filter=6

This is Child Protection?
By Gregory A. Hession, J.D.

http://www.jbs.org/node/4632

Mercenary Motherhood: "Memoirs of a Babystealer."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail

FOSTER CARE IS A 80 PERCENT FAILU. A Brief Analysis of the Casey
Family Programs. Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. By Richard Wexler

http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc

HOW THE WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE BECAME A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN

http://www.nccpr.org/issues/1.html

Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness
DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families
By Nev Moore Massachusetts News

http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/...May/mayds4.htm

A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster ca

30% of the nation’s homeless are former foster children.
27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated
33% were receiving public assistance
37% had not finished high school
2% receive a college degree
50% were unemployed

Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children
not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems,
including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and
impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of
the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various
studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care
tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school
compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their
education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment
than the general population.
*Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support

80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system.

The highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care, Wade Horn
of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former child
psychologist who says the foster care system is a giant mess and should
just be blown up.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2017991

Four rigorous studies have found that at least 30 percent of America’s
foster children could be home right now if their parents had decent housing.

This study found thousands of children already in foster care who would
have done better had child protection agencies not taken them away in
the first place.

Front-page story in USA Today.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...m?csp=34#Close

Read the studies online.

Casey "alumni" study: "Improving Family Foster Ca Findings from the
Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study,"

http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publi...lumniStudy.htm

MIT study: "Child Protection and Child Outcomes: Measuring the Effects
of Foster Care,"

http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fo...arch07_aer.pdf

Texas comptroller's "Forgotten Children" reports:

www.window.state.tx.us/forgottenchildren

The bottom line? - Child Protective Services and the Foster Care system
for the most part turns out young adults that are nothing more than
walking wreckage...

CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY
GUARANTEED LIBERTIES & CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER
AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS....

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...

BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...







 




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