Wounded Innocents [Paperback]

Richard Wexler (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 1, 1995

The war against child abuse has become a war against children. Every year, hundreds of children die, thousands more are forced to live with strangers, and countless American families are torn apart. This is called a "child-protection system."

While the problem of child abuse is serious and real, journalist Richard Wexler charges that our solutions to the problem have actually made it worse - in fact, hurting the very children that they were intended to help.

Wexler reinforces his arguments with horrifying descriptions of children summarily removed from their homes, of families shattered because of false reports, and of children whose parents are guilty of nothing more than poverty being thrust into the maelstrom of the chaotic foster-care program. He writes of severly abused children - those needing the most help - whose cases are ignored because the system diverts scarce resources to trivial or unfounded cases, and who are reinjured, sometimes fatally after their plight has been called to the attention of authorities.

Wounded Innocents illustrates how well-meaning efforts to help children have gone terribly wrong and how the current child-protection system desperately needs to be replaced with one that offers real help and real hope to abused and neglected children.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The war against child abuse has become a war against children," charges Wexler, a reporter for the Albany, N.Y., Times Union , in a well-argued, in-depth study of the "child protection system" in the U.S. and the politics that enmesh it. He maintains that even more alarming than the alleged abuses suffered by children at the hands of their parents are the disruption of home life and the long-lasting trauma of minors assigned to institutions and foster homes that are either as bad as or worse than their own families. He asserts also that "witch-hunts" of foster parents suspected of improper conduct and harried supporting care system administrators, at times involving false accusations of sexual abuse, are all too common. While crediting competent, dedicated caseworkers who struggle in an overloaded welfare system, Wexler deplores what he considers misleading statistics and the presumption of parental guilt that underlie much child protection work. Preventive programs, legal measures and financial incentives meant to preserve original families figure in his detailed recommendations for reform.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The author, a journalist for the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.), charges that Americans have surrendered their most fundamental liberties to a too-powerful child-protective system that turns everyone dealing with children into an informer and encourages the public to do the same. As a result, Wexler reports, each year one out of every 30 children nationwide is reported to Child Protective Services as allegedly abused; most cases are dismissed as unsubstantiated, but not before the accusations have wreaked emotional havoc with a million innocent families. Meanwhile, some abused children are overlooked by a system whose resources are wasted on unfounded cases. Wexler substantiates his charges with numerous print sources and personal interviews; he offers 35 recommendations for the overhaul of the system. This extensively researched volume deserves to be read by anyone concerned with child abuse. Recommended for all academic, public, and institutional libraries.
- Christy Zlatos, Northeastern Univ. Libs., Boston
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 429 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; Rev Sub edition (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879759364
• ISBN-13: 978-0879759360
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,223,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Wexler is Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (www.nccpr.org) a group he helped to found after writing Wounded Innocents.

His interest in the child welfare system grew out of 19 years of work as a reporter for newspapers, public radio and public television.

During that time, he won more than two dozen awards, many of them for stories about child abuse and foster care. Wexler has testified before Congress and State Legislatures and advised the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families in its 1995 rewrite of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. Wexler's writing about the child welfare system has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, and he has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Time, the Associated Press, USA Today, 60 Minutes, National Public Radio, CNN, Good Morning America, Today, CBS This Morning, ABC World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, and other media.

Wexler is a graduate of Richmond College of the City University of New York and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was awarded the school's highest honor, a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. He was formerly Assistant Professor of Communications at The Pennsylvania State University -- Beaver Campus.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If you care about our children or our society you must read. February 7, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have been involved with various aspects of the child protective service system for over 25 years. Based on my own experience, this book does not exaggerate the appalling dangers our families and children face at the hands of these systems. I found the accounts, chilling as they are, to be very accurate reflections of what I know to be everyday occurances in our child welfare system. This author has examined the data and the facts and done the homework that all of us should be doing.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars how will history judge our age? August 20, 1999

By [e-mail]

Format:Paperback

wexler's book should be required reading. i wish i could get "dr" laura to read this book. it would certainly give her pause before saying kids are better off in foster care or an institution than with their parents... the situation in our nation with respect to child protection is tragic. the power of these programs to act is beyond the power granted in the constitution to our police. no search warrent is needed. a child can be taken with notifying the parents, without review. the records are sealed. wexler has done a service by writing this book. recommended highly.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars every one who really cares about children should read it November 14, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Wounded Innocents will enrage any one who really cares about children in general, a particular child, or about the American idea of America.. Richard Wexler well documents the abuses of innocent children and their famlies an the hands of their self-appointed and very often misguided and unqualified saviors. I read this book in small increments because I would often become so angered at what I was reading that I would throw it across the room. I always picked it up again.