Testimony to the City Council of New York regarding the Creation of an Institutional Provider of Legal Services for Adults in New York

Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004

Good afternoon

My name is Rolando Bini, I am a Latino immigrant and the Executive Director of Parents in Action, a Family Advocacy organization.

We fully support the creation of an Institutional Provider for Adults in Family Court. It is long overdue.

At present the Child Welfare System is a Social Cancer producer that feeds the criminal justice system, the homeless, and the mentally ill population.

The creation of an Institutional Provider for Parents in Family Court is a Social Healing initiatives that serve the common good instead of Destroying Innocent Children under the ridiculous pretense of "protecting" them. In order to save one Child the system Destroys one thousand. Either Moron's logic or Clever Evil Social Engineering.

In addition I have two especific recommendations to fight the Social Cancer of Foster Care:

First, form a commission to investigate the Family Court System . At present Family Court in New York City is an Institutionalized System of Injustice. It's only role to "legalize" crimes against innocent Children: 98% of them Black and Latino. A generous estimate of the outcomes of 1028 Hearings in Family Court is that Parents win only 2 cases out of every 1,000. That should give us an idea about Family Court "justice". We need the official statistics of the 1028 Hearings. ACS has not provided them yet. This is the smoking gun and the best thermometer to measure real improvements in the Child Welfare System.

Second, cut funding to the Juvenile Division of the Legal Aide Society which provides the so-called Law Gurdians. They are our Children worst nightmare, and make a very efficient job of making sure that Children stay in Foster Care as long as possible, and that eventually the rights of their natural protectors, their parents are terminated, and thus left totally unprotected at the mercy of an army of predators.

When years later, those Children face the Criminal Justice System, the Criminal Division of the Legal Aid Society does a very poor job in defending them, and most of them start down the revolving door of prison, mental illness, and homelessness. Very Clever. The only thing that the Law Guardians "guard" is the business interest of the racketeering Child Exploitation Industry.

By the way investigate the role of the so-called Law Guardians in not protecting those Children at the Incarnation Children's Center, a Foster Home in Washington Heights, where innocent Children were being used as guinea pigs for drug experimentation, as exposed by the New York Post in the last days. With "friends" like them, Children do not need enemies.

Thank you, God Bless you All.