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On Oct. 24, Raymond and Vanessa Jackson of New Jersey were arrested for child abuse after a neighbor found one of their adopted children scrounging for food in trash cans in the middle of the night two weeks before. The boy, Bruce Jackson, 19, was only 4 feet tall and weighed 45 pounds. New Jersey officials also removed three other boys from the household; the youngest is 9 years old. None of the boys weighed more than 50 pounds.
It is unfortunate that it takes a gruesome case - one that will undoubtedly stereotype decent adoptive parents - to bring badly needed attention to the U.S. foster care system. While there have been attempts to rectify the system in the past few years, these attempts have amounted to little more than quick fixes. With almost 300,000 children entering the foster care system each year, more must be done to ensure these children are properly cared for or adopted into homes adequately prepared to provide for them.
If a state deems itself to be better suited to provide care for children, it must prove it. These children deserve better than to be put in state care that is only marginally better than the situation they were in before, which means states must come up with long-term solutions for solving the financial and personnel problems plaguing the foster care system.
Bruce Jackson was removed from his biological family in 1991 because he was being starved; his situation did not improve with his new family. According to investigators, the four boys were the only children in the house who were being systematically starved. Their diets consisted of pancake batter, peanut butter and breakfast cereal; they had also been locked out of the kitchen. Investigators believe they ate wallboard and insulation. The boys also had lice, rotting teeth and had not seen a doctor for at least five years.
In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which was meant to encourage adoptions in the United States. According to The Desert Sun, states that finalize more adoptions than in previous years receive cash bonuses from the federal government. States are given $4,000 for every child adopted; this amount is increased to $6,000 if the child is deemed to have special needs.
This measure has increased the number of adoptions in the United States (they have almost doubled) and the process has been made faster (the average time for adoptions was down to five months in 2001), which is generally good for children in foster care. However, according to The New York Times, some officials worry the cash incentives have made the bonuses more important than the child's best interests, and the decreased time frame prohibits states from fully investigating potential parents.
Another concern with the measure is that it does not limit the number of children families can adopt, which could leave children being placed in overcrowded homes with families that may not be able to properly care for them. This concern is highly relevant in the Jackson case.
The Jackson family consisted of 11 children: four biological, six adopted and one foster child. Bruce was the second child adopted by the Jacksons; his adoption was finalized in December 1995. The other three boys followed in the next two years, and another girl was adopted in 2000. The Jackson family was in the process of adopting a seventh child when Bruce was found going through trash cans, according to The New York Times.
The Jacksons were receiving more than $30,000 a year from the state to care for the adopted children, according to the Courier-Post Online. Despite this money, the family was $9,000 behind in rent, and the electricity had been turned off from June 18 to Oct. 6. One has to wonder how a family that could not financially care for its children was being considered to adopt more.
Remarkably, the Division of Youth and Family Services visited the home 38 times in the past two years and it even passed an inspection in June; the official who inspected the home, and who has since resigned, called it a "nurturing, stable environment." One has to wonder just how low New Jersey's standards are.
Changes to the foster care system are usually made in response to public failures, such as the Jackson case. Undoubtedly, new legislation will be passed; in fact, some has already been introduced. However, encouraging adoptions and promoting child safety deserves better than these emergency fixes, which can lead to even more problems, particularly in New Jersey.
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