Persistent management lapses and a poor use of technology continue to hobble Los Angeles County’s child welfare system, and two high-profile child fatalities from last year have been newly tied to the breakdowns, according to records and interviews. A special counsel acting for the Board of Supervisors has found that despite pledges to fix the problems, social workers still do not fully retrieve and evaluate case files electronically during home inspections. Not enough equipment is available, officials contend, and it often doesn’t work.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-child-fatalities-20110718,0,6291524.story

Charlotte, North Carolina – Darlene Enos, 35, and Vincent McDougald, 41, have been arrested after the pair allegedly molested the woman’s 1-year-old child. According to the New Hanover Sheriff’s Office, an investigation was launched in late June after a woman called and told detectives that she had chatted on Yahoo Instant Messenger with a man who admitted to having sex with a woman’s little girl.

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http://www.theweeklyvice.com/2011/07/darlene-enos-and-vincent-mcdougald.html

Ex-cop arrested for 1957 killing of girl, 7

SYCAMORE, Ill. — Charles “Chuck” Ridulph always assumed the person who stole his little sister from the neighborhood corner where she played and dumped her body in a wooded stretch some 100 miles away was a trucker or passing stranger — surely not anyone from the hometown he remembers as one big, friendly playground. And, after more than a half century passed since her death, he assumed the culprit also had died or was in prison for some other crime.

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http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43623159/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

A Vancouver woman created a strange situation Thursday when she attempted to sell her newborn infant boy to a woman eating at a Taco Bell restaurant, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. Her sale price was reportedly $500 for the 3-day-old boy. The woman solicited for the purchase was alarmed enough by the offer to call 9-1-1 from a nearby motel at the 6700 block of Highway 99.

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http://www.koinlocal6.com/mostpopular/story/Vancouver-woman-arrested-for-trying-to-sell-3-day/KOE_5Dc46U-pYUm3-oGk7w.cspx

The grooming sex offender works to separate the victim from peers, typically by engendering in the child a sense that they are special to the child and giving a kind of love to the child that the child needs. Different law enforcement officers and academics have proposed models of the “stages” of grooming. Since there are a variety of these models, it’s best to think of the grooming by sex offenders as a gradual, calculated process that ensnares children into a world in which they are ultimately a willing part of the sex abuse.

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http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Child-Sexual-Abuse-6-Stages-of-Grooming

Everyone knows that injecting little kids with botoxis bad, but what about injecting little kids with heroin? Yes, that is also a parenting “no-no,” as alleged heroin dad Jose Paul Velasquez Jr. can tell you, possibly from jail. According to New Mexico state police, the mother of Velasquez’s nine-year-old son noticed unusual track marks on the boy’s neck and took him to the hospital. There, the youngster told investigators about how his dad would inject him with heroin sometimes. The police then arrested Velasquez, who’s now facing charges of child abuse and contributing to a delinquency of a minor.

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http://gawker.com/5821914/dad-busted-for-injecting-heroin-into-nine+year+old-sons-neck

A man and two women are facing felony charges, Johnston County authorities say, after a 15-year-old girl was sold for sex. Teresa Ashworth Page, 41, of 1120 William R. King Road, Newton Grove, was arrested Monday and charged with felony child abuse by prostitution. Page was paid to allow Johnny Franklin Thornton, 62, to rape the girl, Johnston County sheriff’s investigators said.

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http://www.theherald-nc.com/2011/07/17/19247/johnston-county-teen-allegedly.html

A woman from Victoria, Australia, is under investigation after she offered her two young children for sale to the highest bidder on eBay. The woman, in her early 30s, lives near Geelong. She wrote a “lengthy sales pitch” that included photographs of her son and daughter, both aged under 10, reports News.com.au. Several people placed bids on the sickening auction, which has alarmed authorities. A horrified member of the public alerted detectives from the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse unit to the Internet page.

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http://www.hindustantimes.com/Mum-puts-kids-up-for-sale-on-eBay/Article1-722194.aspx

Irish Catholic priests have said that they will not reveal secrets given in confession even though new legislation by the Irish government will call for it. The new legislation will be introduced after another child abuse scandal in Cloyne, a Cork diocese came to light. As late as 2008, clerics accused of child abuse were being protected by the diocese the Murphy Inquiry found.

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http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-priests-say-they-will-not-reveal-confession-secrets-125707833.html

Casey Anthony freed from jail, slips from view

July 17, 2011 (ORLANDO, Fla.) — Casey Anthony walked out of jail a free woman under heavy guard early Sunday, facing shouts of “baby killer” from a heckling crowd less than two weeks after she was found not guilty of murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. The 25-year-old woman, whose acquittal shocked and enraged many around the country who had been following the case for months, left an Orlando area jail at 12:14 a.m., swiftly boarded an SUV and rode out of public view.

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http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/national_world&id=8255347

In 2007, approximately 3.2 million allegations of child abuse and neglect, representing 5.8 million children, were made to child protective services agencies. Of those, 2,085,443 reports were referred for investigation, as reported by 37 states. During FFY 2007, an estimated 794,000 children in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico were determined to be victims of abuse or neglect. Of these children, 59.0% were neglected, 10.8% were physically abused, and 7.6% were sexually abused. The victimization rate was 10.6 per 1,000 children, representing a 12.4% decrease from 2006, which can be explained by definitional changes.

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http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/statefactsheets/2010/nationalfactsheet10.pdf

A hidden history of child abuse may lie behind the myriad social problems that afflict Australia, from its high rate of depression to its high rate of homelessness. We are more aware, partly thanks to the wayward Catholic clergy, of the existence of child abuse. But that has not translated into an understanding of its pervasive and long-lasting legacy. In a room of 100 women, 12 or 13 on average would have experienced sexual abuse as a child; in a room of 100 men, at least four or five would be survivors of sexual abuse. These figures come from the 2005 Australian Bureau of Statistics personal safety survey, and some in the field consider them conservative.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-dark-legacy-of-child-abuse-20110701-1gv68.html#ixzz1SHvclUBb

Police have discovered around one million indecent images of children at a man’s home. The photographs are understood to be the largest number ever recovered by the Metropolitan Police in relation to one individual, a Scotland Yard spokesman said. Robert Barrow (57) of Plaistow, east London, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court yesterday to making indecent images of children.