As a father who's been trying to protect his child from the child's mother who has threatened her child's life and is clearly delusional, it is the syatem, and the people within the system. I've spent an inordinate amount of money, just to keep my ex from potentially killing our child. However, the law states that people have a right to be crazy and raise a child even if they're crazy and untreated. This is often very dangerous to the children. As well, our legal system assumes that if you're a man, you're a scumbag unless proven otherwise, and even then, it assumes you're only less of a scumbag. There is a VERY strong bias for the mother. And mental health professionals won't commit to anything, but are happy to jump in with diagnosis after the tragedy has occured.
Form what I've been through, I am no longer surprised that tragedies such as this, Andrea Yates, Susan Smith occur. Our laws are rediculous, there's incredible bias in the system, and most of the people you find in the mental health community are spineless. Luckinly there are a few judges out there who know children are helpless victims and deserve to be protected, and therefore work the system as best they can.
The first thng that needss to be done though is that the laws have to change. The current laws view the crazy person as the victim, as opposed to the crazy person's family, friends, colleagues and community. There are far to many cases showing proof that we are the true victims, and children should have more of a right ot be protected that the insane person should have the right to remain insane and untreated.
Did the System Fail?
When a mother kills her three children, the obvious answer seems to be yes. But one expert says the resolution isn't so simple.
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"It almost looked like they were cuddled up together for the night," said one of the police officers who found three dead children lying together on a bed in a Long Island apartment on Sunday, according to media reports.
The children's mother, Leatrice Brewer, 27, is now accused of drowning, stabbing and possibly poisoning her two sons, Michael Demesyeux, 5, and Innocent Demesyeux, 1, and her daughter, Jewell Ward, 6. Brewer calmly called 911 to alert police that she had killed her children, even spelling her name out for the operator.
Nine complaints about the family had been filed with Nassau County social services, but follow-up was only considered necessary for three of them. In the most recent instance, caseworkers visited the home twice last Friday to investigate a complaint by Jewell's father that Brewer might harm the children, but no one answered the door. The supervisor scheduled a return visit on Sunday, but by then it was too late. Brewer had been embroiled in a custody battle with both of her children's fathers; the father of the boys, Innocent Demesyeux, was arrested in June 2004 on an assault charge for allegedly beating Brewer.
So where and when did the system break down? Can child welfare officials do more, or are occasional tragedies simply inevitable, given their constraints? Cynthia Scott directs the Coalition Against Child Abuse & Neglect, a nonprofit that works with Nassau County officials to provide services and education to agencies handling abused children. NEWSWEEK's Katie Paul talked with Scott about what institutional problems may have led to the breakdowns and how they might be prevented from happening again. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What institutional problems could have led to the breakdowns in this case?
Cynthia Scott: I think this is a really difficult case and difficult issue. I'm not suggesting there can't be changes to how we do business in protecting children, but they're really difficult cases that can often present in one way to a case worker and end up in reality being something else, which is, I think, what happened in this case. The struggle for CPS [Child Protective Services] is that it's a snapshot in time that workers get when they go out and see these families. They're also guided by very specific statutes in the law regarding what needs to be presented to them before they can make a decision to remove a child or make any other kind of major intervention.
What is the biggest problem facing caseworkers when they're handling cases like this?
They're limited in what they can do. Very often the public doesn't have good understanding of what they can and can't do. Yes, there might have been something else that could have been done in this case. However, living on Long Island and hearing the media reports saying, "Oh my God, they should have removed these kids," and the reality is you can't just remove kids. There need to be very clear things present that provide a worker the opportunity to present the case to a judge, who makes a final determination about removal. It's not as simple as people would like it to be. And CPS is required to make an assessment on a very minimum standard of care. They're not assessing optimal care for children. So what we would all like our children to have is not what the law requires of parents. They need to be fed, clothed, go to school, not be physically or emotionally abused. So if there are no bruises, no disclosure from the kids that there's abuse, and there's food in the house, there's heat in the house, there is a house—those are the basic things workers are looking for.
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