THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 10, 1995 TAG: 9501100017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
After convicting the parents of Christopher Herrera of criminal neglect for starving their 5-month-old son nearly to death, the jury recommended a sentence of one day in jail and a dollar fine for each day he was deprived of adequate food - 106.
If an adult were subjected to a diet that in three months reduced him to a condition resembling a concentration-camp victim and was saved only through the lucky intervention of a bystander, would he think such a punishment adequate?
No. And if young Christopher had been brutalized by people other than his parents, it would be called attempted murder and they'd be going away for a long time.
Nor are there mitigating factors in the case of Martin and Karen Herrera. In fact, the more one learns about them the less sympathetic they become. Christopher is now 1 year old and has two sisters - one 3, one a newborn.
When his older sister was just 3-months-old, her father admitted to blocking her breathing to take out frustrations from work. He narrowly escaped child-abuse prosecution then.
In the case of Christopher, Karen Herrera said she tried to feed her son but he wasn't interested and she didn't know he was supposed to have examinations to determine whether he was thriving. Apparently she couldn't tell from his wasted body that something was amiss.
Clearly, these parents are either incompetent or malign. But five months after the emaciated Christopher was hospitalized, while the parents were awaiting trial, he was returned to their mercies.
How can this happen? In part because we are sentimental about parents and children and slow to separate them. Too slow when the parents have demonstrated they are a danger to their offspring.
Parents who harm their children should get harsher sentences than adults who harm adults. The children are literally defenseless unless society comes to their defense. And it should not take repeated instances of violence or neglect to protect children, but it often does.
Relying on counseling to help neglectful or violent parents while the children remain at home is dubious. Far better if parents who have shown themselves to be dangerous be required to earn the return of their children. And counseling should include family planning to discourage such parents from having more potential victims.
All too often bureaucratic ineptitude and parsimony leave children at risk even after the risk is plain to see. Betty Wade Coyle of the Hampton Roads Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse bemoans this reality. ``It's cheaper to send them home,'' she notes, unhappily.
More dangerous too. That's shameful in a country that professes to value children above all else. But actions often speak louder than words, as both the parenting behavior of the Herreras and the legal response to it have shown. by CNB