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Juvenile courtrooms remain closed, because
lawmakers' minds also were
The legislature left Frankfort having cracked open the door to juvenile
court, but just barely and apparently only for the purpose of letting
prosecutors and judges show how tough they are on young hoodlums. But
there is so much more the public needs to know about the way courts deal
with youngsters, with their families and with the agencies and officials
who are supposed to protect them and help them.
Imagine a situation in which:
- The federal government puts heat on states to jack
up the number of foster children who are adopted, and state officials
protect their access to federal funds by pushing "quick trigger"
adoptions, in which judges cavalierly take away the rights of
biological parents.
- State agencies and court decisions send mixed
messages: Leave an abuser or lose custody of your children, but if you
take refuge in a shelter we'll consider you unstable.
- Social workers choose adoptive families for their
potential to benefit the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, or to
return a favor some official thinks is owed.
- Poor families confront this kind of discrimination
without the help of lawyers or expert witnesses, because they can't
afford either.
Well, none of this is fantasy.
These are the kinds of things critics of the system
described in a startling report by Valarie Honeycutt Spears in the
Lexington Herald-Leader. It may be evidence of a national problem,
surfacing early in Kentucky. What's at issue is the potential use of
foster children as "bartering items" in a system that looks a lot like
the black-market distribution of kids. The Louisville-based National
Institute on Children, Youth and Families, along with Kentucky Youth
Advocates, raised concerns in a report earlier this year. There have
been lots of denials, but the state Health and Family Services inspector
general is on the case, and both administrative actions and criminal
prosecutions are possible.
The broader question is why it has taken so long for
this potential scandal to emerge publicly. It's also an easy question.
When kids are involved, courts prefer to operate in the dark. As
Honeycutt reported, judges, social workers, biological parents and
advocates are "typically intimidated by confidentiality laws." The state
investigation was prompted by 225 hot-line complaints, in which callers
couldn't be entirely candid. They were scared to break secrecy rules.
Fayette Family Court Judge Tim Philpot said, "The key to all of these
cases is whether you have a judge paying attention." But how would the
voting public know, since it is shut out?
Prior to this year's legislative session, The
Courier-Journal's Andrew Wolfson described the consequences of a system
in which Kentucky still prosecutes juveniles behind closed doors, then
locks away their records. The result: "Nobody knows whether a dangerous
juvenile is in their midst, or whether Kentucky is getting its money's
worth for the tens of millions of dollars it spends on prosecution,
treatment and rehabilitation of young offenders." This state invokes
some of the strictest secrecy in the nation, "requiring the public to
accept on faith that it is being protected from dangerous children --
and that innocent children are being protected from dangerous adults."
Lawmakers apparently didn't believe what they read.
During the session, the Kentucky Press Association and a group of county
attorneys led by Jefferson's Irv Maze tried to argue that the juvenile
justice system should be open, with judges allowed to impose secrecy
only in special circumstances. Lawmakers wouldn't listen. They either
don't understand the value of openness or don't care enough about kids
and their families to mandate it.
David Hawpe
30 April 2006
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/COLUMNISTS08/604300380
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