A shocking case of four adopted boys in New Jersey who were starved by their parents and survived on a diet of peanut butter and plasterboard is prompting an urgent review of America's adoption and foster system and the generous subsidies offered to would-be parents.

Starvation horror story sparks review of foster and adoption system

Public outrage has grown since welfare officials discovered the boys in the Collingswood suburb of Philadelphia a week ago. Aged 9 to 19, they looked like famine victims. The eldest of them weighed less than 50 pounds and was only four feet tall. Neighbours had assumed he was about 10 years old.

Criminal charges have already been levelled at the parents, identified as Raymond Jackson, 50, and his wife Vanessa, 48. Yesterday, the couple were in custody pending a court hearing. Meanwhile, prosecutors in New Jersey are pondering criminal charges against officials of the Division of Youth and Family Services, which is responsible for administering the fostering and adoption of children in New Jersey. Already, 10 department officials have tendered their resignations.

Officials are at a loss to explain, in particular, how the condition of the boys went unnoticed for so long, considering that the Jackson household received 38 visits from social workers over two years. Questions are also being asked about the financial incentives offered at both the state and federal levels to families willing to take children out of the foster system by adopting them. In recent years, the federal Government has pressed states to accelerate adoption rates by offering generous stipends.

It emerged that the Jacksons received US$30,000 ($49,000) in subsidies last year to help rear the children. The couple, who had no other sources of income, had six adopted children and one foster child, whom they were also preparing to adopt.

Although the four boys were all victims of cruelty and neglect, the other three children, all girls, were found to be of sound health.

The subsidies system was revisited in 1997, when Congress passed legislation offering states US$6000 for each extra adoption out of the foster system a year over the number completed in the year before. Child advocates have also long argued that adopted children have a better chance of adapting than those in foster care.

Now, however, there is concern that the reforms went too far to push children into a limited pool of suitable adoptive homes. The new law, commented Richard Wexler, director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, was passed with good intentions. But there was the risk that it "would create a huge incentive for quick and slipshod placements".

New Jersey has already been struggling to reform its child welfare department after a string of scandals involving abused children and poor supervision of families. Governor James McGreevey only last month appointed a new child advocate, Kevin Ryan, to review the system.

“The question that has to be penetrated is, how did 38 visits over two years not rescue these children from slow torture and starvation?” Ryan asked when the Jackson case came to light.

Police were alerted when a neighbour spotted the eldest boy rummaging in their dustbins for food at 2am in the morning. It later emerged that the four boys had been locked out of the kitchen by their parents and fed mostly on peanut butter and cereals. However, to stave off starvation, they had occasionally resorted to eating plasterboard and insulation from the walls of the house.

“This is the most horrible case we have ever encountered in our child abuse unit,” Vincent Sarubbi, a county prosecutor, commented.

By David Usborne
31 October 2003
 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3531714&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

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