NEWS: 11 Children Found Caged in Home

Well, this has certainly generated a lot of emotional responses. I'll admit my first response was one of repugnance and anger, but after re-reading the article I'm not so sure that is the right response.

According to the article the couple have not been charged with anything as of this time and the police state there appear to be no signs of abuse. Other portions of the article state there were toys scattered around and there was a big box of shoes & boots near the back door, plus all the children hugged & kissed the foster parents as they were taken away. That doesn't sound like abuse to me. However, the thought of keeping children in cages raises my hackles instantly.

I've no personal knowledge about caring for an autistic child, much less multiple autistic children. What is the proper way to do so? As I understand, such children can seriously injure themselves because they don't understand or appreciate the danger inherent in things the rest of us just take for granted. I can see how caging them at night would keep them from wandering around at night and perhaps injuring themselves or even burning the place down, but is that an accepted method of care? What are the alternatives?

Was my first angry reaction correct, or is this just one more case of the media sensationalizing something?

[edit on 13-9-2005 by Astronomer68]

I see very little wrong with the government giving money to foster parents. It gives middle-class or low-income families, who are otherwise good people, the ability to remove kids from orphanages and place them in a stable family setting. A lot more often than not, this is an excellent program. Of course, as with any government program, people are going to take advantage of it. There's always going to be those kinds of bad, sick people out there willing to use children who already have it hard enough just to make a buck. That doesn't mean the program should be scrapped entirely, as it helps to provide for many children. $1000 a month in the hands of good, caring parents is plenty to feed, clothe and take care of the average child.

The problem obviously lies in the screening process used to determine who is fit to be a foster parent. Should some bad seeds get through this process and be allowed to foster children, they should be rooted out very early on via follow-up visits and interviews with the foster children. The problem is that neither of those things seem to be happening. Again, it comes down to understaffing and giving case workers far too much to legitimately deal with. I really do salute the good people out there who are kind enough to take foster children into their homes and raise them as if they are their own. They do an invaluable service to society, and the monthly checks aren't their reward- seeing these children grow up into good people is what makes them tick.

I don't think there is any grand conspiracy here. It all comes down once again, as with most government programs, to bureaucracy. We're not putting enough resources into the parental screening process and the follow-up investigations. To me, this would help eliminate a majority of the kinds of cases we're reading about above. There is no silver bullet and there never will be. This is going to require more money (unless we make cuts elsewhere), but in the end, isn't it more than worth it? No child, especially one that has already been separated one way or another from their real parents, should have to go through this kind of abuse. There needs to be a nationwide overhaul of the entire system BEFORE we throw more of our tax dollars at it. But this is definitely a high priority issue in my book and it needs to be addressed by our government immediately.

Very sick story, Why would you put childern in cages not nice
I hope they are now in good care in better foster homes.

[edit on 13-9-2005 by Interseptor]

Education... Sometimes humanity has strayed that far from what nature intended that we cease to contain "instinct".

Foster homes can be good or bad, depends on the potential FParents methods and reasons of why they wish to become a foster parent. Some do it from their hearts, some from greed and some because they want to be seen to be doing something good.

Cages for kids..... how can anyone really believe that this is good, how can one believe a shrink recommended this treatment.

It causes fears..big fears.

I have lots of ruggies and they are happiest sleeping in one big warm bundle of little loving bodies, close to each other.

The whole system needs an overhaul, more checks in place and monetary incentive taken out of the equation.

I know it sounds cruel but any money going to foster parents has the ability to be syphoned off into booze, drugs, partying, frivolous purchases. Same goes for welfare system too. We need somehow if we are to pay these people, make sure the money is going where its needed.

if these people had 11 kids, there must be a real shortage of FP's. if it took to now to discover, then there is also a shortage of workers overseeing the FP's

The blame has to partially lie with the department involved. With 11 foster kids, visits to this house by officials should have taken place weekly or every few weeks. 11 kids? geez thats incredible really... that it was allowed to happen.

Cages for kids? I am still stunned that people are even questioning that this is ok...no no and no again..so wrong on so many levels.

news.yahoo.com...
everone who has been passing jugment Better read the REST of the story .
Ps I did go through foster homes my self and they were REALY bad places and wile its looks as if these people having 11 may have been movated be money to a degree this whole Cage thing is just plane BAD reporting .
these so called cages Dident have locks they were more on the crib line then cage line . A crib with a roof . Brightly painted and NOT I repet NOT locked . The yeard full of play toys the people living in the other homes saying they say the kids out side . It realy looks to me like this arangment was mostlyy ment to keep them from harming them selfs or each other .
ps not ssaying it was the Best solution but hardly a jail cell .

foster homes are worse people...

which place would you pick???

the lesser of two evils i suppose...

originally posted by Astonomer68
all the children hugged & kissed the foster parents as they were taken away

Are you at all familiar with the psychology of abuse? If so, you would know it is not uncommon for scenarios like this to play out in the worst abuse cases. A dependency is created that transcends the abusive behavior. For example, my dad beat the crap out of me many times, but he loved me very much and I love him to this day, may God have mercy on his soul. The abuse gets diconnected from everything else via compartmentalization.

To Simcity4Rushour

A cage is a cage no matter what colour it is painted...
These children need wide open spaces, not cages to make their small lives even more smaller and confined.....

As said before i have a bunch of ruggies, six of my own plus extras most of the time. I have played with the idea of one sleeping room for my kids, because they all seem to want to be together at night. Not scared alone and locked away in a tiny space.

I can't believe that some people hear think that sticking children in cages doesn't sound bad. I hope some sick serial killer abducts you and sticks you in a cage so you can get a sense of what it feels like.

They probably used those children as sex slaves or something, i would give them the death penalty. If the children had some special cages, i am sure they would be padded, spacious, comfortable and wouldn't resemble cages at all you morons.

Judgement without knowing all the facts (in this case not knowing any facts exept "kids in cages" if you didn't read the updates on the articles) is a fools game.

Putting them in cages isn't 100% right, correct, but without knowing the circumstances and the overal quality of life for these kids, you can't go jumping to conclusions imho.

If you read the updates on this article, the circumstances and quality of life of these kids does get clear.

The 11 children removed from a house where authorities say some of them slept in homemade cages are polite, well-behaved, well-dressed and appear to have been well-fed, neighbors and authorities said Tuesday

Let me tell you out of professional experience that if kids are locked up in cages with criminal or abusive intent, what the neighbors and authorities said would not be true.
People that put kids in cages out of hate or with bad intentions will generaly malnurish them and find them unworthy of wearing anything more then rags.

denied in a custody hearing Monday that they abused or neglected the children, who are ages 1-14 and have conditions that included autism and fetal alcohol syndrome.

those are 2 category's of handicaped children that can be violent with primal instincts. These kids, when unguarded at night, could do more then just hurt eachother. Hence the confinement and alarms.

The Gravelles have said a psychiatrist recommended they make the children sleep in the cages, Huron County Prosecutor Russell Leffler told the Norwalk Reflector. The parents said the children, including some who had mental disorders, needed to be protected from each other, according to a search warrant on file at Norwalk Municipal Court.

Of all people I would check out this shrink, if he said that for real, then these parents were following guidelines from a professional.

Neighbors said they often saw or heard the children playing, and the family yard was littered with toys — plastic cars, tricycles, slides and an overturned skateboard near a wooden ramp. Seven bicycles were piled in a storage shed.

"Those kids were dressed better than some of the kids who live in Cleveland. They behaved like any other kids when they were outside playing," said Jim Power, who lives across the street.

Same as earlyer, if kids are put in cages with criminal or abuse intent, toys and stuff would be things these parents sure wouldn't waste money on.

At night, authorities say, eight of the children were confined in 3 1/2-foot-tall wooden cages stacked in bedrooms on the second floor. The cages were painted in bright, primary colors, with some rigged with alarms that would send a signal to the downstairs when a cage door was opened

So, not all of the kids were confined.
The cages turn out to be wood, would remind me more of a wooden childrens crib then a cage.

Lemme ask you something. When you look at a babycrib like these:



Isn' that just a cage with a fancy name?

If you stack them, don't you have a room full of cages?
The cages were painted in childrens colors, people who hate kids don't do that, they do everything cheap and dirty.

"Some of the cages had alarms" makes it so that 2 to 5 of the cages had alarms, when you see that 1 of the kids was born with HIV, and there was at least 1 authist and 1 kid with FAS(fetal alcohol syndrome) which are 3 kinds of kids you HAVE to keep seperated when unguarded.

Authists can have violent fits when provoked, FAS kids are hyperactive, have poor judgement, reasoning and social skills(making them violent at times) and a kid with HIV could infect all the other kids in so many ways. Kids leave behind alot of mucus and tend to get small injuries from playing.

We don't have any indication at this point that there was any abuse

As I staded before, if the officials don't even suspect foul play after this has even apeared in court, then how much abuse is there to talk about then these people following psychiatrist guidelines on confining potentialy violent and 1 contagious child?

The circumstances, reasons and quality of life of these kids actualy seem to be above average and in perfect order.

Apart from wooden bars around the kids beds (yes, they were more wooden bars around the cribs and beds then they were cages) these kids were well nurished, well clothed, had all they could want to play, had quality time with the parents, had a decent upbringing(foster kids well behaving, being polite and being wellfed shows the parents do give a hoot, contrary to millions of parents out there that kill, maim, hurt, mallnurish, rape, kick, slap or just don't care about their kids out there.

Sorry, but the outrage in this case is caused by the original press coverage and the people in this thread pulling something out of context, out of proportion and out of reality.

I still don't think you get it, thematrix, and I think my outrage is justified. The cribs had lids on them. That makes it a cage, no matter how you slice it. If they need cages to protect the kids from one another, they shouldn't have so many kids with so many problems so unsupervised at one location.

You are the one making alot of assumptions and judgements. I made one. Caging kids like this is bad. I'm sticking to it no matter how you try to portray this arrangement as banal, even somehow normal. I speculated about the mattresses having some unspeakable intent.

There is no way you can justify to me one couple keeping 11 children controlled and confined like this. I don't care how you whitewash it, how much you go on about toys and clothing and appearances, you will never convince me that this arrangement is ok.

That is my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

About cribs with lids, you do know that accidents with kids dropping out of cribs by climbing over the edge often end up with broken bones right?

So what choice do you have next to putting a net or a lid on the cribs? Especialy with problematic children?

You might be right that my general standards(not personal standards, I'm probably one of the best dads out there and I'm rather confident in saying that) of how people treat their kids might be a bit different from what some people have because of the professional environment I'm in.

This is mainly due to the things I see every day in people's homes. As I said, you can't judge parenting by knowing 1 thing or just hacking away on the bad things. You have to see the whole picture. And eventhough certain things might seem exentric or wrong, in perspective they are often the most viable and best solution to a problem with both normal and special children.

And about the family having 11 kids, isn't that more the fault of the adopting agency's and/or childcare departments? Its their specific task to investigate and deem the parents fit or unfit to take care of these children.

Childcare officials are supposed to routinely check up on fostercare families and their children. They are the ones supposed to visit the homes and schools to check if everything is in order and up to standards.

Considering the cages were advised by a shrink and seemingly childcare hasn't had a problem with it for at least 3 years of normaly regular and standard routine checkups, aren't the fosterparents just doing their job within the parameters set and audited by the childcare departments?

[edit on 14/9/05 by thematrix]

At night, authorities say, eight of the children were confined in 3 1/2-foot-tall wooden cages stacked in bedrooms on the second floor. The cages were painted in bright, primary colors, with some rigged with alarms that would send a signal to the downstairs when a cage door was opened. One cage had a dresser in front of it, county sheriff's Lt. Randy Sommers said Tuesday.

If you haven't read the whole story you should. Many of you probably haven't even visited the link. I didn't the first time I responded but after hearing others response I need to make sure - were they really cages?

How tall is 3 and a half feet? Can a 14 year old (the oldest) stand up in it, sit up in it? Alarms on it? What happens if the alarms go off, do they get beaten up and forced back in?

If any of you really think that this is actually understandable than you are not using your minds for the sake of reasoning but for the sake of arguing. Know the difference please.

If it's hard for you to try and reason this, think about this... You are 25 and your wife is 24. You have 3 adorable children, a 4 year old and two lovely 2 year old twins. They are taken from you because of some reason and put into foster care. Do you want the best care for them? What will you do after 2 years and you can get them back and you learn that your now 6 year old and 5 year olds are living in cages like these? Aren't you sick?

11 kids @ $500 a pop, is $5,500/month. With that kind of money who needs to work? The Gravelles were a regular cottage industry.

I say these poor children got lost in the sytem that supposed to care for them.

Very sad.

The $HIV baby was the one they got 500 a month for. I bet the other 10 were less.

How can two 55+ year olds take care of 11 Children? Put them in cages at night and on the street/yard at day. At the worst they must have made 3,500$ a month by their scheme.

00PS, can you stand up right in a bunkbed?
Width and height is about 120cm from what I could callculate, I don't know about the depth. Article didn't say.

And well, I think from my quoting you can see I did read the article and its updates.

I'm still on the fence on this one, without pictures of the room in question you can't judge about it, not without the whole picture.

As for your comment on the people getting their kids taken away.
If they are placed in a family by child services, again, who is to blame for this kind of things? The foster family doing what they can do for these kids or the child services people that are supposed to do regular checkups and are sanctioned to qualify or disqualify a family from being fosterparents?

TheMatrix

point is the children should not have been placed in this environment where they needed cages. Assessments should have been given and the children who did harm others or self harm be treated and kept away from danger. Think about it. 11 children two FP's. They should never ever had had that many special needs kids in their care to start with and any foster kid is a special needs kids, just the level of care changes. One special needs child can be fulltime how about 11. Its ridiculous. These children should not have had to endure sleeping arrangements where they needed caging or confining from harm.

Mayet: I think I made that same exact point TWICE already.

Who puts these kids there? Child services.
Who needs to check the FP's and do routine checks and audits on them? Child services!
Who is at error here? Child services!!

Are these FP's to blame for doing their best at fostering and controlling 11 kids? While foster kids are special already due to psychiatric impacts of being put into the system, they had several special special children. They were doing what they could for these kids under the guidance and supervision of child services.

I'm not assigning blame specifically to anyone, and I am using this story to highlight the failings of an entire system.

There is an element out there in society that is doing this to our precious, innocent children, and they must be stopped!

When the issue becomes income, and not the provision of care, it opens the door to a whole spectrum of speculation about the spectre of abuse and exploitation of these kids. I mean how many other ways could the system and this couple have been profiting off these kids? If that's their motive, wouldn't you expect them to follow the Amerikan way and capitalize on it?

With all of these child porn rings being busted and exposed these days it worries me greatly that may be in play here. Just this past year, a former Riverside, Ca. police officer was busted for traveling to Wisconsin to have sex with children. Of course the system doesn't want its failings and flaws exposed, and it will go to any lengths to protect itself from informed scrutiny. At the very least, other, more acceptable arrangements need to be made for these children, and the couple and the local CPS and the social workers involved need to be fully investigated. Now do you see where I'm coming from?

Adam Brown, 32, formerly a police officer in Riverside, Calif., was convicted of travel with intent to engage in a sexual act with a juvenile. He was sentenced July 29 to 365 months in prison and five years of supervised release. Brown flew to Beaver Dam twice to have sex with boys at Martin's invitation, according to court documents.

WISCONSIN MAN GETS 50 YEARS FOR CHILD SEX CRIMES

I'm not saying these specific kids in the case linked above were in the foster care system, but it is ripe for this kind of abuse.

Originally posted by thematrix
Who puts these kids there? Child services.
Who needs to check the FP's and do routine checks and audits on them? Child services!
Who is at error here? Child services!!

I totally agree....but the parents should still be held liable to some degree.

Are these FP's to blame for doing their best at fostering and controlling 11 kids?

They fostered 11 children, obviously it was more than they chould handle if cages were needed at night. Do you honestly believe they did it out of love? Maybe, who knows...but I bet money was an issue for the parents.

On another note, They should not have had that many children in the first place...especially with hundreds of families out there looking for one child and getting denied for some stupid flaw in the system....and other families are getting 11 children...that's insane.