"Long-term foster care in Texas is “broken” and routinely does grave harm to children already dealt a tough hand, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack of Corpus Christi said the state violated the Constitution by keeping about 12,000 youngsters for years in an underfunded and poorly run system “where rape, abuse, psychotropic medication and instability are the norm.”
Defendants John Specia and his staff at the state Department of Family and Protective Services have “the best intentions, she wrote. ” But the system, despite 20 years of reports and attempted fixes, keeps harming the children it’s supposed to help, the stinging opinion reads." Texas will probably appeal.
I am a Texas resident, and know lots of Texans who seem to think Texas is some kind of paradise and bastion of widespread freedoms. I tell them, it's not so is you are black, poor, jailed or imprisoned, mentally ill, mentally disabled or a foster or abused child. The state does a horrible job of providing decent public services for those groups. Texas history is full of examples (Texas prisons, CPS, etc.). Many cites are no better. The public hospital in Dallas has been the scene of recurring outrages and scandals.
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