Attorneys for Kids: an Urgent Call to Action
| Publication year | 1994 |
| Pages | 1053 |
| Citation | Vol. 23 No. 5 Pg. 1053 |
1994, May, Pg. 1053. Attorneys for Kids: An Urgent Call to Action
---Bill Moyers
We exist on a razor's edge as an ever-increasing fear of crime and violence invades our streets and the sanctuary of our homes. As the nation reels from the reverberations of millions of children raised in violence and degradation, Colorado prepares for the summer of 1994. Remembering the random and raging bullets which plagued Denver in 1993, the Mayor's Safe City Plan aims to shrink youth violence with both a show of force and a helping hand.
The focus of this article is the population of abused and neglected children in Colorado who cry out for attention. Attorney General Janet Reno believes that family violence is the root cause of all society's problems. Finding an appropriate response to these abused and neglected children would reduce violence significantly in the next decade.
Child abuse and neglect is devastating to children. Recent studies confirm that child abuse is linked to an increase in drop-out rates, juvenile delinquency, running away, substance abuse, suicide, criminal behavior, emotional disturbances, promiscuity and teen pregnancy.(fn1) Many of these at-risk children call on our legal system for assistance. Unfortunately, for many of them, it is like dialing 911 and getting a busy signal.
The Department of Social Services is often blamed for not rescuing children from abusive parents. However, the agency's most troubling failure is its treatment of the children it "saves." Children are sent on a journey of aimlessness and bounced around like pinballs in a system over which they have no control. Too often, children wait for critical help which never arrives, and the system exacerbates their pain and desperation.
After years of unconscionable delays, these children drift into adulthood, seemingly doomed to repeat the cycles of violence and neglect that pushed them into the system. By turning to drugs (to self-medicate), gangs (to belong) or crime (to feel powerful), children acquire new troubles that rival the ones that brought them into the system in the first place. Former foster children are disproportionately represented in juvenile and adult prison populations, among the homeless and on state assistance roles.(fn2)
While sensational cases like Gregory K., Jessica DeBoer and Kimberly Mays dominate the media's attention, over 4,200 invisible children in Colorado pay for bureaucratic inefficiencies with diminished lives. These are the children who are often "buried alive."
No child should have to depend on an overwhelmed bureaucracy to meet critical needs or on a similarly overwhelmed juvenile court system which has little time to hold the system accountable. This consuming failure of the system cannot be attributed solely to occasional oversight or to a few misguided judges. The culprits of our failed juvenile justice system are our policies and practices which condemn these vulnerable children to frightful lives.
As ministers of our system of justice, Colorado lawyers and the organized Bar have a special duty to do something about it.(fn3) There are no simple answers, but a way to begin lies within each one of us. By investing the time and energy to help,
members of the Bar can guarantee these children the protection to which they are entitled. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and director of the Children's Defense Fund, believes that "service to others is the rent you pay for living on this planet."(fn4) What can be more rewarding than changing the direction of a child's life?
In America's Children at Risk, the American Bar Association ("ABA") sets forth a national agenda for legal action to aid this nation's most vulnerable children.(fn5) The ABA report challenges lawyers to be problem-solvers and to make law one of the agents of civilizing change.(fn6) The ABA encourages advocacy for children in areas of child welfare, juvenile justice, education, entitlements and medical benefits.
The problems of children are not just isolated legal problems, but problems of powerlessness. Attorneys who represent children(fn7) are not confronting merely apathy and inertia, but a complex and powerfully entrenched set of customs, practices and attitudes. The ABA recently amended its Model Rules of Professional Conduct to clarify that provision of pro bono services is the individual ethical obligation of each lawyer. More importantly, every lawyer should aspire to commit at least fifty hours a year to providing legal services to persons of limited means or to organizations designed primarily to address the needs of such persons.(fn8) Attorney General Janet Reno has challenged members of the Bar to live up to those professional canons by promoting the cause of America's children.(fn9)
Several aspects of the judicial system should be changed to provide quality legal assistance to children.
Children are "captive clients." They are invisible, demand nothing, have little or no ability to insist on compliance with the law and have no choice in who represents them.
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