… but I know people who have lost their jobs for a LOT less than the 3 years of incompetence by the DSS staffers who were “following” the case of Haleigh Poutre, the 11 year old Westfield girl who is currently on life support, having been beaten literally senseless by her adoptive parents after 3 years of near-continuous physical abuse.
Naturally, the DSS Commissioner, Harry Spence, announced that he has “no plans” to discipline any of his staff, presumably on the basis that these so-called experts were “duped” by this poor child’s crafty, duplicitous adoptive mother.
If there’s any justice in this at all, it’s that the bitch killed herself two days after being held on child-abuse charges. Let’s hope she’s found her just reward in the afterlife, having gotten her sick, perverted jollies in this one by torturing someone else’s child.
Why is it that in this state, DSS workers continually get a pass for failing to act on clear cases of the most severe child abuse?
Meanwhile, the taxpayers are supporting the posh lifestyle of a child molesting criminal who started raping his adopted daughter when she was age 5, and continued raping – and starving – and videotaping – her for five long years.
Rather than doing hard time in a real prison, he’s living the high life at a “prison” hospital on the grounds of the old Fort Devens in Central Mass.
Massachusetts has to have one of the worst records in the so-called civilized world for protecting innocent, helpless kids from abuse by their legal guardians.
Legislators ignore the problem, the courts deliver wrist-slaps instead of sentences, DSS employees don’t bother to do their jobs because they can get away with it, and juries look the other way.
I’ve corresponded with at least one DA who was thoroughly heartsick over a case he prosecuted for years, a case in which a toddler was starved to death by his parents. Thanks to the diligence of this DA, the father was ultimately convicted, although the mother beat the rap (I think it was because the jury foreman wanted to bed her). So, there’s a few good civil servants out there, and how they manage to keep from going completely bananas is beyond me.
I wish I knew why this state has such a lousy record in this area. Maybe it’s due to those same unconscionable, money-grubbing defense attorneys in our legislature who protected drunk drivers for so long. Or maybe it’s the example of the Boston Archdiocese, which dealt with its own employees’ sexual abuse of kids by setting an in-house moral standard so low that it ended up 10 feet beneath Boston’s rat-infested gutters.
Either or both ways, it’s infuriating and despicable.
Then again, it could come down to one of the seven deadlies: greed.
Last week, the state Auditor cited a special ed facility in Lowell for “spending more than $1.7 million” on “questionable” expenses, like season tickets to the Red Sox, snowboards, skis, lobster, beer, etc.
There is every reason to expect similar levels of fraud and fiscal abuse from the 1,100 private providers of social and human services. According to the Boston Globe, the state is currently trying to recover some $25 million resulting from an audit of only 35 of these vendors.
Even when expenses are “legitimately” accounted for, they are, as the Globe put it, “galling”: the Globe also reported that the Lowell special ed facility’s former executive director is STILL on the payroll, to the tune of a $125,000/year consultancy fee.
As I asked above: how do these people get away with it?