This Is Not The Way Things Were Supposed To Work
MayorBob.
Posted to Legal on Wed Sep 17, 2008 at 05:54:21 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
Since 1999, states have enacted Safe Haven laws as measures to help protect the most vulnerable among us. For the most part, the laws allow parents or guardians, to surrender children they are responsible for with the state. They are intended to remove younger children (you might say babies) from threatening environments and not punish the surrendering custodian. Most of the laws are quite strictly worded, along those lines. Nebraska apparently is not one of these as, within a few months of enactment of that state's Safe Haven law, two older children have been surrendered under the Safe Haven law - inappropriately in the minds of many Nebraskans.
When LB 157 was first read on the floor of the legislature, it quite clearly limited the age of the children covered by the law to 72 hours or less. Yet, between the time it was introduced and the time it was finally enacted (pdf doc) something had changed. What changed was there was no mention of age limit whatsoever. According to the bill's sponsor, non-partisan State Senator Arnie Stuthman from Platte Center, he had to expand the bill's coverage to include all children to get enough votes to get it passed. However, Stuthman said:"This is not intended to be used when a child is unruly or out of control. People need to realize the effect on the child and what it will do to families."
Within the past week a 15-year-old boy was dropped off at a hospital in Lincoln and an 11-year-old boy at a hospital in Omaha. Neither child was in any danger and both were surrendered because of "behavior problems." Before the Safe Haven law went into effect, either guardian could have been charged with child neglect or abandonment (both misdemeanors) or felony child abuse. A representative from the state Health and Human Services department lamented the law's use to handle teenaged behavior problems. Jim Blue, from Cedars Youth Services, says "there are good organizations that can help with teens when situations become stressed." But those agencies work to help the child as well as work for reconciliation with the guardian experiencing problems with the child. With Safe Haven, the child is ultimately absorbed into the state's foster care system.
Some Nebraskans join Blue in questioning this use of the law. Kathy Moore of Voices for Children in Nebraska declared it a "new front door to the child welfare system." At least one Nebraskan tried to put some positive spin on the cases. State Senator Brad Ashford says, although the law was intended to save younger children, "if it does save a child, then it's worth it obviously." Ashford says the law will have to be reviewed to see if older children are being saved or if parents are just gaming the system.
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