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Having never tried to adopt anything myself, it is my understanding that most state and local care agencies are way overworked/understaffed.
Special needs kids are the hardest to place, and most expensive to care for.
How much scrutiny is an agency going to give someone who is willing to take an armload of trouble off of the state budget?

CNN Article

Quote:

NORWALK, Ohio (AP) -- A couple accused of abusing their 11 adopted special-needs children by making them sleep in cages lost permanent custody Monday.

Huron County Juvenile Judge Timothy Cardwell awarded custody to the county, which had placed the children in foster care last fall after a social worker discovered the enclosures.

The judge ruled earlier that Michael and Sharen Gravelle had abused the children, and he said evidence showed there was a good chance they would repeat the behavior.

SNIP
Cardwell ordered 10 of the children placed in the permanent custody of the county.

The eleventh child, a 2-year-old girl, was placed in temporary custody with the county because the adoption agency that placed her with the Gravelles has asked that she be returned.

Well, at least the judge wasn't taken in by their idiotic reasoning. My main concern for them at this point is what will happen to them now? The Gravelles aren't actually wrong about how difficult it will be to place the children in new permanent homes. They're insane otherwise, but correct, I feel, on this point.

What would you have the state do to rectify this situation?

I would offer an answer here, but I don't frankly know. Ideally, there would be families out there who take care of the kids right, but I don't see that as being truly possible... for ELEVEN kids in one area. Hm.

Here's what I would do...

1. Put the kids in county/state custody (done)
2. Put the "parents" in a cage...and know that they'll likely be much more spacious & comfortable than the ones that their kids were in.

Why do we have prisons? Isolation of dangerous members of society and reformation and rehabilitation was the original idea. Of course, that's now how it works. Prisons are an expensive way to make bad people worse. Private sector, for-profit prisons benifit investors to the detriment of society. I wish there were a way to convince these corporations that there is greater profit investing in youth programs intended to PREVENT crime and criminals.

My heart goes out to the kids in this... They were abused, and will now get lost in the system, never getting the proper care they need.