Report: Florida still inept handling foster care rape cases

[flashl]

Report: DCF inept in handling 2 rape cases

Miami child abuse investigators waited days to notify police and prosecutors that two foster children had been raped, interviewed one of the girls in front of her alleged attacker and the foster mother to whom he was engaged, and were slow to remove the girls from the home, a new report says.

A team of investigators from the Department of Children & Families' Quality Assurance office concluded in a Jan. 15 report that the investigator assigned to the case last May showed ''no sense of urgency,'' when she waited three days to reinterview one of the girls who had only discussed the case in front of her foster parents.

''We have to stay focused on preventing child abuse and neglect in these homes,'' said Alan Abramowitz, DCF's new regional administrator in Miami. ``These foster homes have got to be of a high standard.''

To improve the licensing and oversight of foster homes, Abramowitz is creating a specialized unit within his investigations staff with expertise in identifying the maltreatment of kids living in private or state-run institutions.

Miami Herald

[razors edge]

1. They are no better on the other end.

Former Felons Forced To Move From Under Bridge
Group Packs Up, Creates Camp At Edge Of Everglades

http://www.local10.com/news/15107218/detail.html

BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. -- A group of registered sex offenders and convicted felons who were told by the Department of Corrections to live under a bridge in Fort Lauderdale have been chased away by neighbors, police and the Department of Transportation.

Trespassing" signs underneath the Oakland Park Boulevard Bridge over the intracoastal and told the former felons that if they didn't leave they'd be arrested. The group packed up their things and headed west.

They set up a camp on the edge of the Everglades, far away from schools, parks and civilization.

They have a tent, battery-operated television and DVD player, a portable cooking stove and a beat-up rusty grill.

"Hopefully nobody's going to complain about it and we can be left alone for a while," said Mark DaCosta, an ex-convict who is not a sex offender but was ordered to live by the same rules as a condition of his parole.

The Department of Corrections had the men reporting to the bridge every night because they couldn’t find a place for them to live that wasn't too close to school or park. State law prohibits sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of anyplace children congregate. The problem is that nearly every city in South Florida has its own laws that push the sex offenders and ex-convicts back even farther , Local 10's Roger reported. In most cases, the local ordinance is 2,500 feet.