Jackson County, Michigan
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“These children will not go on the market.”
Statement by judge working diligently to investigate
cases and keep families together.
Presently, the Child Protective System is trying to get
this judge removed from the bench.
Judge Terrence Thomas
Newaygo County, Michigan
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“There is no system ever devised by mankind that is
guaranteed to rip husband and wife or father, mother and
child apart so bitterly than our present Family Court
System.”
Judge Brian Lindsay
Retired Supreme Court Judge
New York, New York
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“There is something bad happening to our children in
family courts today that is
causing them more harm than drugs, more harm than crime
and
even more harm than child molestation.”
Judge Watson L. White
Superior Court Judge
Cobb County, Georgia
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LOST AND ALONE ON SOME FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY
ASFA, Binsfeld and the Law of Unintended Consequences
There is a disadvantaged people-group in our society
that is expanding rapidly.
It is comprised of children and young people who
have never known the ties and support that come from
having a reliable family.
I have seen the faces and studied the cases of
some of these young people and the loneliness and
alienation that I have seen is heartbreaking.
These people are the new generation of
state-created orphans.
It was a totally unrealistic assumption to believe that
the supply of adoptive families could absorb the numbers
of new wards available for adoption, particularly when
the additional children come from the child protection
system. In
spite of tax incentives, adoption subsides, promotion
programs, post-adoption support services and other tools
to try to place these children, the numbers show that it
won’t be done and our group of state-created orphans
will continue to grow.
Unfortunately, as things stand now, we are witnessing
one of the great ironies in the legislative world of
good intentions gone bad.
The number of rootless and alienated permanent
state wards has exploded and these children and young
people are still caught in the foster care system from
which they were to be rescued.
We have made things worse, not better!
Honorable Kenneth L. Tacoma, Chief Judge
Wexford County Probate Court, Michigan
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