...There is a heueueuge industry profiting off the same court system as this judge involving $Billions per state in contracted private corporations and state agencies under DSHS CPS. While a lot of is is "legal" a great deal of illegal activities are simply ignored and become "legal precedence" meaning that the court routinely ignores Constitutional rights and breaks the law and this is supposedly OK.
These agencies get their funding based on Title IV that uses Social Security money for the sole purpose of taking kids from their families. Their mandates in essence say, "The more kids you take, the money you will make. If you return these children home, you will LOSE all present and future funding..."
Each state receives approximately, depending on the state, $1.2 BILLION dollars of this Title IV money. They also go in and take an additional 1/3 of any money allocated for low income assistance in food stamps, medical, housing and cash assistance. I am saying that rather than assist a low income family, they get more money and even TAKE money literally "out of the mouths of babes" in order to take their kids and get 1000% more in funding for doing so. As a matter of fact within the training of my own (WA) state's DSHS, TANF (welfare) case managers are encouraged to report to CPS for anyone applying for assistance.
On the average an agency gets about $8000 per "legally kidnapped" child per month while it would cost less than $1200 of your tax dollars to actually support the family instead. On the ground what this means and transpires into is to target low income families' children using unconstitutional but now state-made unchallenged legal "reasons". They often use "reasons" as vague as mere "concern" without having to prove any proof of abuse at all. Additionally the laws now give case mangers bonuses for each child they successfully take ~ plus the raking in of funding by mega-nonprofits, and all their contracted agencies. All of these people are given complete total immunity for any consequences even after proving in court they have lied. Therefore it is profitable for everyone to take low income family's children. Your tax-paid personnel within DSHS and CPS will pay $thousands for everybody else BUT give any support for the birth family to care for these kids by simply accusing them of some kind of "child abuse". An average adoption brings in an additional $50,000-$100,000 per child.
I used to believe that the kids were truly abused when taken by CPS, but in fact even the Department of Social and Health Services admits that over 85% of these children are not abused. They also know that when they place these children in foster care and adoptions, these children have a 5-7X and greater chance of being physically and sexually abused than if they had simply given support to the families and left the kids in their home.
Rather than support these families, they take kids for many bad reasons. I have personally seen kids removed because the family cannot afford the water or electric bill (MI's private water companies actually pours cement down the pipes of a family with a delinquent bill). I have witnessed taking kids because their family cannot afford the heat bill, they have no telephone. They take kids because a parent could not take the child to a medical follow-up (often because the appointment can only be made at times that the parent is working and if the parent does not work they don't get paid, etc). I have witnessed kids taken because the kid wore the same clothes two times in a row to school, and because the the mother was a new mother and so "did not have the experience to parent" (who was adopted and reported abuse as a child but was never heard or was it addressed ~ until it became convenient to take her baby).
I have witnessed kids taken who have not been abused themselves but because the parent had been sexually or physically abused as children and so even though there is no evidence of their children being abused, because these parents had been abused, they might in the future sexually abuse their own kids. Many of these targeted parents were foster and adopted kids themselves who were abused in state-sanctioned homes. If the parent becomes ill and cannot work for a wage, rather than help the family , DSHS accuses the parent of "maltreatment and neglect" and takes their kids.
I have actually seen a low income housing building completely emptied of children taken one-by one, which the non-profit who owns this building "coincidently" also houses adoption and foster care agencies as well as DV lawyers who like to blame the victim rather than actually support them (cough, cough while saying Seattle YWCA). I have also learned this emptying of buildings of all the children regularly occurs in transitional and low income housing in PN, GA, MI, WA, CA. The only reason I do not mention any other states is those are the ones that I have had meetings with lawyers, clients, and other personnel from these states who have witnesses to these occurrences. NOBODY wants to address this. Rather than support a family, juvenile courts and all their minions get much more funding while mega-nonprofits and private corporations will prosper for simply destroying the family and taking their children.
The going philosophy is that if the children are taken from low income homes and placed in upper income homes, then everything is "fixed". Who cares what happens after that just as long as there is a new car in the driveway and the homeowner is at least middle class? Who cares about the terrible, deep, damage and detachment they impose on these children who will be affected for the rest of their lives or for the possible abuse they may face ~ just as long as everybody BUT their birth families profit? Did you know that a foster home has more legal rights if accused of child abuse than a grandparent who has never abused their grandchildren?
In my state (WA)for instance, just last month a low income couple who the State admitted had never abused their children, lost their 4 children and their parental rights terminated because supposedly they were "slow learners". The last child was taken directly from the hospital after birth (a great piece of "merchandise" since it was a white girl). DSHS got AT LEAST $32,000 per month for this as well as spending $thousands on court costs and contracted agencies. They created extremely high barriers insisting on impossible activities for this couple. For instance, as low wage workers they were instantly expected to become middle class and pay for a 4 bedroom home without any support to do so. DSHS CPS demanded the couple to pay a huge part of their meager incomes in child support while CPS was also receiving all this state and federal funding. CPS also made them pay for all the state contracted mental health "experts" who stood to profit by always going into court with the state's recommendations (and thus ensuring they would keep those contracts coming).
Meanwhile as this case was being prosecuted, they were digging up the bodies of several starved and beaten adopted children this same agency had placed in their "forever home". Using the glowing term "forever home" is an unfortunate description here ... And of course, after jumping through all those hoops and giving all the income they had, this low income couple lost. Not only will these decision makers ever face any consequences at all for permanently placing these dead children in their living hell, these agencies used these parents' kids for profit, knowing full well that nobody, including this couple would have enough resources to go up against the entire state who wanted their children for profit.
Grandparents have tried to save their grandchildren, losing everything, taking mortgages out on their homes (if they have one) and spending their entire nest eggs for naught trying to save their children from the System. They are hardly given a nod in court, considered not as important as the foster home with strangers where their grandchildren languish. They "get" to go through mourning of the legal death of their bloodline while watching their grandchildren sold to the highest bidders. The reason they have no rights and are not considered is that the juvenile courts and all their contracted minions would not profit off the Title IV mandates if they returned these children to their families.
These people well know that supporting families is not only far less expensive, it is more successful ~ even when the adult(s) have substance abuse issues. Adopted and foster children are more likely to drop out of school, become substance abusers, go to jail, become teen parents, and become homeless than if they had been left in the home with support. Yes kids should be taken from homes where they are being burned with cigarettes and beaten ~ but this is less than 15% of the children they take. Most of these families simply need support that costs far less ~ but unfortunately this would result in the loss of funding and profit for juvenile courts, these private corporations, nonprofits, and government agencies, should they do so.
The whole juvenile justice system is rife with tainted personnel and funding and it does not only deal with teens, it deals with ALL cases involving ANY child. Juvenile court is in actually a "pseudo court" that gets to make decisions about people's lives while being aware of where the profit lies. For decades with the use of low income children, they have been creating "legal precedence" for higher courts to use. They are routinely ignoring Constitutional rights impacting higher court decisions ~ especially when it is brought up to the SCOTUS' attention, which has ruled that all are immune, even though many courts have expressed deep concerns about the procedures these pseudo courts use. See the comments made by the 9th Circuit Court in Humphreys vs County of Los Angeles wherte this court openly stated they had little trust in the so-called 'internal" investigations" where the "investigations" are made by the people who are being "investigated". By being a "pseudo court" juvenile court can make accusations without ever having to prove a thing, and simply use vague and unprovable findings such as using someone's "feelings" or even though there is no evidence, they can prosecute people for what *might happen in the future" as fact.
These judges know much of the money that these "juvenile contractors" get is out of Title IV ~ as they themselves receive along with the many private and public agencies standing to get money for "saving the wittle baybees". Most juvenile judges are corrupt because they know what is going on. They have nothing to lose because they are often themselves getting "double pay" for being a juvenile court judge and a regular court judge, collecting twice the pay, accumulating twice the retirement, twice the paid sick leave, and twice the vacation pay for working one job. They well know that most teens who turn to the streets are foster children and adopted kids who have been taken from their family homes that their own courts and personnel refused to support. While being sexually exploited or abused, these kids who try to tell CPS about their suffering are ignored because who cares while letting these kids shiver in a doorway terrified to go to their assigned homes, left to wander the street, when their "forever homes" and all these agencies still get money whether or not the child actually lives in these homes anymore ? If they get in trouble, well it just means more for the courts, DSHS, keeps those judges in that double pay, and more funding for these "private contractors".
I am an activist for low income families. I see this happening every day. I know for a fact that juvenile courts are crooked and involves fraud not only with this judge, but it is happening nationally. Here are some links for those who want to know more:
*The first is the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform: http://www.nccpr.org. They have tons of white papers that have come out of the government, universities, and organizations such as the Casey Foundation about the studies cited on this post. http://www.nccpr.org.
*Here is a group of scrappy WI women who have gone out in their state and recorded what they have witnessed. These low income moms did better wonk work than any wonk in the nation would do about the profit making that comes out of "managing" the poor including CPS activities. Because of their activity, they have caused the prosecution of fraud that forced their legislators to request the return of funding, but they have barely scratched the surface and this activity is happening in every state as it not only involves local agencies, it involves agencies that are national and international: http://www.welfarewarriors.org/mwv_archive/sp09/sp09_milw.htm
*Here is another organization fighting the water rights issue in MI State. Kids are being taken because rather than assist these families with a $300.00 bill, they take the kids and get $8000 a month per child for taking them. You could speak to Maureen Taylor who is a vibrant speaker about this issue: http://mwro.org/
There are more organizations who are becoming aware of their own community's juvenile court corruption and the targeting of low income families. As one of these, I am a board member of POWER, http://www.mamapower.org who is also speaking to this corruption and demanding reform!
My 2 cents
Cat in Seattle
= new reply since forum marked as read
The beatings and degradation. Damn!!!!! He's everything that is wrong with this country and more.
May he find 'justice'. Oh fuck, I forgot. He'll probably on appeal to SCOTUS get a slap on the wrist fine and have to spend 90 days in a country club detention center.
i hate to say this but this was in the movie Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore, and in the film it was a majority of white kids sent to jail by this judge, i hope the headline was not slanted on race to grab more attention 
there is enough to the story to be outraged about without race as the header IMO. 
