On March 13, 2007 News4Jax.Com published this article:DFCS Official Accused Of Spanking Daughter With Belt. According to this news report the accusation came after school officials reported that the accused woman's eight-year-old daughter had marks on her back and legs.
The mother apparently has confessed that she forced her daughter to strip down to underwear, then spanked her with a belt. She claims this isn't child abuse and that it was done because the girl misbehaved at school.
The eight year old girl and her three sisters, ages 6, 5, and 3, have all been placed in protective custody.
Because of this accusation Cylenthia Clark is having second thoughts about how child abuse cases are handled. She is quoted as saying, “It makes me very empathetic; it makes me look at some of the cases that we handle. It's something that down the line that it's something that we are really following through and getting all the questions answered before we assume that person is guilty.”
And that's a good point. Is she guilty? In America we are supposed to be considered innocent before proven guilty, however for thirty years parents have complained that in child abuse cases they are considered guilty first, then forced to prove their innocence. It can be very difficult to prove that something didn't happen when government-paid experts are saying it could have.
What seems strange to me is that the arrest warrant states that the beating took place on February 7 but the school personnel didn't see the welts until February 28. That's 21 days later, and welts were still visible? If that's correct, the injuries must have been severe.
Here is another news source for this story: DCFS Official Denies Abuse
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Comments: 3
don't get me wrong, i am totally against any use of violence against children however i feel too many parents have gotten away with things while others because they are not able to hire good lawyers get treated with maximum severity ..that woman had no business hitting a child with a belt and deserved to have her children taken away, however i wonder how many parents have had their children removed for less such as being too poor to afford help and having the social services come hard on them because of unrealistic expectations..
there is also a place to edcuate parents to use preventive measures to teach parents how to handle stress, that is where the social system fails us, they do not bother to take the time to prevent, to educate, they just take the children and god knows whether the foster homes are better, many times these children get treated worse, and are victims of various forms of abuse by incapable foster care workers, so one wonders if this will be a wake up call?
it is so difficult to adopt a child unless you are a rich movie star
so how come it is so easy to abuse them?
there are many questions to be asked, but the most important one is what is the standard for parenting, since many spank their children where exactly is the red line, to me it seems the belt is, but if this is acceptable in that particular society, it is high time to educate and teach rather than preach and take away
an