Economic Security

Economic Security was the topic of the most recent Hamline University Dialogue ((4/20/06).

It was remarkable to hear Art Rolnick (Fed Reserve Board Chairman), Chris Farrell (Chief Economics correspondent American RadioWorks), and Jenny Keil (Associate Professor of Management and Economics at Hamline) relate the economic security of our nation to the education and well being of children.

There is a very real value to fostering a healthy population of citizens that can obtain an education, earn a living and take care of themselves and their families. In fact, it has been argued that it was the effectiveness of America’s educational institutions during the 1950s that made it’s population the most productive in the world.

The panel brought our attention to the very real cost to a community of children born into toxic, violent, drug using, abusive families. Mental and physical health problems explode into long term illnesses that keep at risk children from leading normal lives.

Instead of healthy productive children, untreated at-risk children become unable to cope with peers, their community, or at school and become more and more dysfunctional as they get older. For many years now our courts have been sending more children into the Juvenile Justice System and about twenty five percent of the Juvenile Justice youth into the Criminal Justice system.

Statistically, more than half of those children and youth are being diagnosed with mental health problems, their criminal recidivism rates are high, and their long term potential for remaining in the court system, jails, and prisons has reached an all time high.

It’s expensive to maintain a child through years of Child Protection services, more years of Juvenile Justice, and if they graduate to Criminal Justice, it is often a life sentence of recidivism (66% is the national average in America's prison system). It cost almost $80,000 to maintain a prisoner at Stillwater Prison last year.

The smart money treats the child effectively at the first opportunity. It saves us money, breaks the cycle of family abuse,(healthy children have healthy families) and a human being.

Mike T
guardian ad-Litem www.invisiblechildren.org

The Longest Day

The longest day.


8am to 9pm last Friday Reassessing the Past, Present, and Future Role of Children and Their Participation in American Law. Hamline University 4/1/06


From a legal perspective the most under-protected persons in America are sexually abused children.

One study indicated that 11% of judges and 51% of prosecuting attorneys admitted that they had deliberately confused the child (witness) during the proceedings.

What this means in practice, is that the nine-year old girl sitting on the stand in the courtroom is being bullied by intense and deliberately confusing cross-examination about her abuse.

Everyone at the sysmposium agreed that children are not mentally capable of undergoing adult type cross examination, but it is clear that this still happens in many cases.

The outcome of child sex abuse trials is generally negative for the child, and often the abused victim ends up back in the homes with no negative consequences to the abuser.

Another common outcome, is that prior charges (both alleged and substantiated) are often not allowed as evidence against the perpetrator. This results in juries not knowing about extensive sex abuse histories of the abuser and ruling as if this were a single event instead of many years of child sex abuse.

Many County workers know that our criminal legal system doesn’t work for children and therefore choose not to bring suit against the child sexual predators.

This has been my experience as a Hennepin County guardian ad-Litem. Today for instance, I am preparing for my fourth trial in about ten years with a mom that has had five children taken from her on three different occasions.

The sex abuse was documented, and one report from ten years ago indicated that after being sexually abused, the seven-year old girl was kicked so hard by her abuser that she went into convulsions. The impact these acts have had on this poor girl are impossible to overstate. She is not

The current report shows the same things being done to her sixth and seventh children that were done to her first five; sexual abuse, violence, and drugs in their system (at three-years old).

The man who committed the acts ten years ago is still in the home and has never been brought to trial on any of the original accusations. It boggles the mind to think that this fellow has had NO negative consequences for his behaviors. One must wonder how many children he has impacted over his lifetime.




If you have stories about this topic, please send them to me.

Let's all work to bring attention to this painful failure of our legal system.