Girl spanked to death in the name of God, children's deaths after investigations

Number of children's deaths after abuse investigations has risen
Former DCF administrator says 2003 policy change has put kids at risk
February 27, 2011 By Carol Marbin Miller, The Miami Herald

....Statistically, however, Nubia's story is rather common: She is one of hundreds of Florida children who died of abuse or neglect during the past decade after child welfare authorities had performed at least one investigation into their welfare. Florida not only leads the United States in the number of such deaths, it dominates the nation.

After a controversial decision by child welfare administrators to halve the number of children taken into state care — while reducing the number of children receiving protective services with their birth families — the number of dead children with a child protection investigative history almost doubled, from 35 in 2001 to 69 in 2009. No statistics are available for 2010.

Over the past six years, 41 percent of all children who died of abuse or neglect in Florida had been the subject of at least one prior contact with child protection authorities, the state Department of Health reports. The average for all other states: about 12 percent.

In 2008, the number of Florida children with a history of abuse or neglect reports who later died made up almost half of the U.S. total. In 2009, 64 of the 120 child deaths nationally with a history of reports occurred in Florida — or 53 percent.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-02-27/news/fl-barahona-dcf-policy-20110227_1_abuse-or-neglect-child-deaths-child-welfare


Girl spanked to death in the name of God
Anderson Cooper 360 August 15, 2011

Gary Tuchman reports on an author who says you must spank your child and a couple who killed their daughter doing it.
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/08/15/exp.ac.tuchman.punishment.cnn

482 children died. Now what?

482 children died. Now what? Carol Capó

April 11, 2011 If 482 children had died in Virginia because of tainted formula or shoddy cribs, there would be people going door to door to recall all the suspect cans and cribs they could find.

If 482 children had died in Virginia because the brakes on a certain make of car were faulty, we would have demanded action from Congress — and got it.

482 children did die in Virginia, over the 11-year period that ended June 30, 2010. But they weren't sickened by bad food or suffocated by collapsing cribs or crushed by careening cars. They died because the people who loved them, or should have, killed them or let them die.

That astounding number is the count of children who died of abuse or neglect at the hands of a caretaker, in just this state in just this period of time....

In Hampton Roads, in that time, 196 children died....
This is what we know about those 196 children: They were almost all babies. About half never got to celebrate their first birthday, and three-quarters were no older than two.

We know how they died: The single most common cause was inflicted head injury.

We know who killed them. 60 percent died because of the action or inaction of a parent; 11 percent were the victims of a parent's lover, usually the mother's.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-nws-capo-column-0412-20110411,0,1411662.column