In response to an editorial calling for new legislation to make it easier for 
children to be removed from parental custody, I wrote the following letter.  
It was published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette 4/19/95.  The editorial 
argued that returning children to parental custody where they might be abused 
was analagous to the Vietnam strategy of destroying a village to save it.
    
     "Save the children" misapplies the Vietnam village analogy and draws the 
wrong conclusion.
     "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War" (Harry G. Summers) 
relates this exchange: "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield," 
said the American colonel.
     The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment.
"That may be so," he replied, "But it is also irrelevant."
     If you do not understand the problem, the amount of power available is 
irrelevant.  Currently, there is no valid, objective and reliable scientific 
means to identify child abusers in advance or to predict when child abuse 
will occur.
     Competent leadership would admit this and seek to address it.
     The proposed legislation giving the Division of Children and Family 
Services more power will not resolve this problem.  It will delay its 
resolution.
     In 1994, I requested annual statistics on the number of children in 
Department of Human Services custody and the number of children physically or 
sexually abused in foster care custody.
     DHS did not know.
     An agency that does not know how many children it has placed in foster 
care cannot be competent.
     This is important.  One source estimates a 90 percent rate of sexual 
abuse for female children in foster care.
     This is the true analogy to destroying a village to save it.
     Removing children from parental custody because they might be abused and 
placing them in foster care where they are virtually certain to be abused 
does not protect a child.  It only makes intervening adults, who never know 
the consequences, feel good.
     Consigned the the DHS black hole, children are out of sight, out of 
mind, and DHS writes the history book.
     
    
I hope some of our legislators here in Arkansas read it.
--- GEcho 1.11+
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