I'm back, temporarily it seems - I may lose the use of
the phone line I temporarily have so I may vanish yet
again for a bit, I don't know yet. At any rate in
checking email I received this Houston Chronicle
article. In reading it, I find the statement again
about "upstanding citizens" which always irks me
because what is considered an "upstanding citizen" and
by whose definition? Look at the statistics ...
900,000 cases reported annually. To me this shows the
state of this society. Look back in history,
children, and women, were nothing but possessions, to
be treated however the male of the family deemed.
While it has seemingly changed from this aspect, in
some ways and areas it has gone the opposite -
children are now "protected" from parents and others
deemed by officials to be abusive. What turns out
abusive in many of these situations are the officials
and their intervention.

Anyhow off my soap box. I apologize but official
intervention is a very sore spot with me sometimes.
Kim
=============

HoustonChronicle.com --
http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: National

May 5, 2003, 10:29PM

Victims of child abuse more likely to turn to crime
Study urges prevention funds
By JONATHAN D. SALANT
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Children who are abused or neglected
are far more likely to become criminals as adults,
according to a study released Monday by an
organization of police chiefs, prosecutors and crime
victims.

The report by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids recommends
more money for pre-kindergarten programs and
parenting classes, saying the cost will be offset
later when children who might have been burdens on
society grow up to be upstanding citizens.

"Children who survive abuse and neglect can be
significantly injured," said one of the report's
authors, Dr. Randell Alexander, director of the
Center for Child Abuse at the Morehouse School of
Medicine in Atlanta. "Many go on to hurt others. If
you are born into a world of violence, you wire
yourself for violence, not for peace."

Using various federal data and academic and advocacy
group studies, researchers said child abuse and
neglect is vastly underreported.

The 900,000 cases reported annually by the Health
and Human Services Department may be only one-third
of the actual total, the report said.

The report cited a study published in 2000 by Dr.
Cathy Spatz Widom, a professor of criminal justice
and psychology at the State University of New York
at Albany, that found individuals who had been
abused or neglected as youngsters were 29 percent
more likely to become violent criminals.

Using that estimate, researchers said 36,000 of the
900,000 children cited in the HHS report will become
violent criminals when they reach adulthood,
including 250 who will become killers.

The report's authors include four local prosecutors
and two sheriffs. They said the findings illustrate
the need for more federal funds for pre-kindergarten
programs and parenting classes for families
considered high-risk for child abuse, primarily
those on welfare or headed by high school dropouts.

The 1996 welfare overhaul bill earmarked $2.8
billion for the states under a social services block
grant, but congressional Republicans cut funding to
$1.7 billion in the current budget year.

David Landefeld, the Republican district attorney
for Fairfield County, Ohio, said crime connected to
child abuse costs Americans $50 billion a year -- 50
times the amount of money cut from the social
services block grant.

HHS officials said it was up to Congress to decide
whether to provide the money.

In Elmira, N.Y., a parenting program for single,
poor mothers reduced incidents of child abuse or
neglect to one-fifth of what they had been. In
Chicago, a combination of parenting classes and
pre-kindergarten cut cases of abuse and neglect in
half, according to the report.

"It is possible to prevent child abuse and neglect
instead of waiting for the next horror story to
occur," said Brooklyn, N.Y., District Attorney
Charles Hynes.

Brendina Tobias of Newport News, Va., is a social
worker whose son was killed in New York in 1993
while walking to a restaurant to get food for his
elderly grandmother. The killers had been neglected
as children and learned to take whatever they wanted
to survive, Tobias said.

"Abuse and neglect can be prevented," Tobias said.
"Maybe my son would still be alive."

On the Internet: Fight Crime: Invest in Kids:
www.fightcrime.org

Widom study: www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/jr000242b.pdf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HoustonChronicle.com --
http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: National
This article is:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1897513

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