Today the Staten Island Advance wrote this story ..
New York City Family Court is overburderned - Staten Island Real-Time News - SILive.com
After 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown was discovered emaciated and beaten to death despite warning signs of her abuse, sweeping reforms were made to New York's child welfare agency. Millions were invested, caseworkers were added and police presence beefed up. But the legal system that deals with troubled families remains stagnant in the two years since Nixzmary's death, choked with a backlog of hundreds of cases that forces children around the state to languish in foster care.
"You have a certain exigency to cases involving children," Judge Ann Pfau, chief administrative judge for New York state courts. "You want to be able to resolve problems as quickly as possible, you just want stability for the child.
Six months in criminal court case is different from six months in a family court case. Six months is a very long time for a child. We think about it all the time."
There are 47 judges assigned to Family Court in New York City, and about 146 statewide who handle more than 750,000 filings each year. In New York City, judges regularly have more than 2,000 cases pending, and can hear more than 50 cases per day. The number of judges hasn't changed since 1991, despite a surge in filings after the girl's death.
The court's heavy caseload has also been expanded by a recent law giving its judges jurisdiction over additional types of domestic squabbles. Pfau said that what the system really needs is for the State Assembly to add more judges. An analysis showed at least 14 judges are needed in New York City alone to handle the workload, according to Family Court Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Lauria.
"We are straining our present resources, but the work has to go on," Lauria said. Bills asking for additional judges have been proposed from time to time, usually following a high-profile child abuse case, but nothing has been approved.
A bill stalled in the State Assembly that would have created 39 new judgeships, including 14 in New York City. But the New York is facing serious economic trouble with a $5.4 billion budget deficit looming next year, so it may not be likely to hire more judges any time soon. Gov. David Paterson cut $427 million from the current state budget and wants to slash another $600 million next year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered cuts amounting to $1 billion by fiscal year 2010.
Nixzmary died Jan. 11, 2006, of a vicious blow to the head while being punished for taking a cup of yogurt from the family refrigerator. Investigators discovered she had been a virtual prisoner, confined to a room with dirty mattresses, a broken radiator and a wooden chair to which she was bound with a rope. She had been using a litter box as a toilet.
Her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, was convicted of manslaughter in March and is serving 29 years in prison. Nixzmary's mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, is currently on trial. She pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
Prosecutors say she did nothing to stop the abuse and at times provoked it. There had been warning signs for years before Nixzmary's death. School employees reported that she had been absent for weeks. Neighbors noticed unexplained injuries. The child appeared underfed.
Child welfare workers were alerted twice but said they found no conclusive evidence of abuse. Her case never made it to court.
After her death, the city invested $16 million in the Administration for Children's Services, increased staff and decreased the maximum number of cases assigned to each caseworker.
The child advocacy law firm that handles many abuse and neglect cases, the Legal Aid Society Juvenile Rights Practice, hired 35 more attorneys and limited their workload to keep children from being lost in the shuffle. Previously, lawyers at the firm were handling as many as 250 clients apiece. That number was decreased to 150, said Tamara Steckler, who runs the department.
The average child is spending five years in foster care, and there are about 17,000 children citywide in the system. Even with the bottleneck in court cases, though, those numbers have decreased. In 1998, 43,000 children were in foster care and the average time was nearly seven years.
The end.
I couldnt help myself.. I had to comment on the article as it was filled with blah blah ... we need the public to believe our B.S. SOS
Here is my comment ..
Follow the money..
Child anything but protective services receives "incentives" (Federally funded money) to "protect" children whose families did not exceed X amt of dollars per year. (I believe this cap was just lifted but don't quote me)
So let me ask you this...if I gave you millions of dollars to "protect" children whose parent's only made X amt of money last year, would you focus on a certain group to "protect and remove"?
Of course you would.. they're in it for the money NOT to protect children.. wake up America!
What is Title IV-E? - New York State Office of Children & Family Services
Children are being legally kidnapped, used and abused and your tax dollars are funding it.
Over burdened courts? Pfftt of course they're over burdened .. do you realize what abused children whose families meet the criteria are worth to the State in federal finding?
Family courts across America are over burdened, this isn't exclusive to NY State.
Sadly, child protective services isn't what the public would like to think they are.
Don't believe me .. research it for yourself...then DEMAND change!
Start here with these blogs that speak the truth..
Locally-
My personal story.. of apparent conspired corruption, abuse of power, estranged husband's political connections that caused the seperation of my children and I since 2002...
http://disgustedwiththesystem.blogspot.com/
An ex "child protective services" worker..
http://acsmustbestopped.blogspot.com/
Another local parent abused by the system...
http://www.parentsinaction.net/facts.htm
From a Senator -
http://www.senatornancyschaefer.com/newsletters_updates.php?filter=43
From an attorney-
http://massoutrage.com/dssdirtytricks.htm
World-wide-
http://childprotectorracket.blogspot.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/abolishcps
http://legallykidnapped.blogspot.com/2008/10/couple-says-state-bullied-them-into.html
http://suncanaa.com/suncana_s__kids
http://fightcps.com/2007/09/08/tell-us-about-your-favorite-web-pages-for-information-on-fighting-cps/#comment-9003
http://kidjacked.com/
http://www.nccpr.org/
Who wants to take bets ..
My bet is they WONT allow my post to show... magine that?
I'll check back later to find out if they published it .. but I wont hold my breath!
1 comment:
Thank you Louise!
The court system is riding its own runaway train to moral bankruptcy from indifference, incompetence and corruption.
Merely adding more judges to a system already weighted down with the likes of Family Court Judge McElrath and judges who continued his reign of terror, namely Acting Supreme Court Judge Barbara Panepinto and Acting Supreme Court Judge Debra Silber enabling fraud on the court and on your children without
accountability does nothing to correct the fundamental flaws in the system.
Your case examplifies the Subprime Litigation Crisis
that goes on in broad daylight in the custody courts of New York State. Credit is extended
to a litigant who has no history of creditworthiness
where truth is concerned. He is given the green light to file fraudulent claims to be the more fit parent and to be entitled to chlld support all the while concealing from the court his manipulation of child protective services and his disavowal of the orders of the State of New Jersey already on the books.
In fact your "Mr. Wonderful" had the courts scratched the surface would have known that he had the opposite record on truthtelling--he had a history of filing multiple false accusations of neglect and abuse to assasinate your character. His goal was successful. He bilked the system. He distracted the honorable jurists on the bench from acknowledging the key fact that you were the holder of custody and child support issued by the State of New Jersey even as he deliberately deprived his children of a mother in their lives for the last seven years with the courts' formidable assistance.
God bless the judges of the Appellate Division who are sitting on these questions at this moment and need to be held accountable if they try to dodge or torpedo the real issues in your case.
They need the wisdom and the courage to write the truth about the fraud committed upon and with the courts of Richmond County and upon your children and to effectively right these wrongs.
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