For Immediate Release: March 14, 2001

Privatization and Family Court Reforms Needed to Prevent Abuse and Neglect

San Francisco, CA – Despite reform efforts during the late 1990s, the foster-care bureaucracy and family courts fail to protect children adequately, often endangering children’s lives, according to Child Welfare Privatization and Adopting Reform, two studies released today by the Pacific Research Institute. Both studies examine state-based reforms nationwide, and recommend practical measures and privatization of services to speed the movement of children into safe, permanent homes.

"The irony is that the very systems that are supposed to protect children are actually putting them in danger," said Naomi Lopez Bauman, director of PRI’s Center for Enterprise and Opportunity, which commissioned the studies.

In her shocking study, Child Welfare Privatization: Reform Efforts in the States, Julia K. Sells reveals the horrors of the current system. Foster-care payments, as uncapped entitlements, create a perverse financial incentive to states that keep children in foster-care. Despite $12 billion poured annually into the system, the number of children in foster-care has nearly doubled since the mid-80s, with half a million children living in out-of-home care nationwide.

Performance incentives that put family reunification before child safety further consign children to foster-care and discourage adoption. Sells documents heart-breaking case studies of children sent back to their families only to be further abused or even killed. To reverse this alarming trend, Sells recommends time limits be placed on family reunification and adoption. She offers examples of successful reform efforts in a number of states, including the privatization of child welfare programs in Kansas.

In his groundbreaking study, Adopting Reform: The Need for Change in America’s Family Court and Foster-Care System and a Survey of Reform Efforts, author Doug Bandow reveals that any reforms to the current foster-care system must also address the family courts, which are permeated by a "culture of delay."

Bandow finds the family court system understaffed and besieged by bureaucracy, needlessly prolonging the processing of child welfare cases. According to Bandow, up to one-quarter of the children in the foster-care system languish there for more than four years. Worse, each year, 15,000 children "graduate" from the system without ever being placed with a family. Many of these "graduates" end up on welfare, homeless, or in prison.

Bandow catalogs reforms across all 50 states that are making the court system more efficient and effective, including success stories of reforms in states like Kansas and Michigan.

"If we’re really concerned about these children, then it’s time for serious reform, including accountability measures, and permanent placement as the ultimate goal, with strict time limits," said Lopez Bauman.

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To schedule an interview, or request a copy of these studies, please contact Dawn Dingwell at (415) 989-0833, ext. 136 (ddingwell@pacificresearch.org) or visit our website at www.pacificresearch.org.