Secret Courts by Joe Burns

Secret Courts by Joe Burns

Did you know if you are accused of 'Child Abuse', that there are two separate investigations by different Government bodies, and that if you are not deemed guilty in the Criminal Justice System, that you can still be punished in the Family Courts under a lower burden of proof? Did you know that on a mere accusation alone, you could lose your child forever and never have the right to see them again? Did you know that a Government Official could decide that your child is At Future Risk and remove your child and adopt them against your will without you being charged with a crime? The Thought Police have arrived in your neighbourhood and are operating as a Child Protection System. Did you know that the suicide rate of children in foster or residential 'care' is 10 times the national average. Did you know that the State, in the form of foster parents or of 'Residential Care', dump children on the streets at the age of 18? Many of these children have been systematically alienated from their families, their parents left broke and broken, and many of these children will end up on drugs, homeless, in prison or in prostitution, which presumably wasn't the objective of taking them from their parents? Over the years I have met many 'nice people' working in the system, believing that they were helping a child. Unfortunately best intentions or 'best interests of the child' don't translate very well into best outcomes. 'Best Interests Principle' (BIP) is the basis for which laws are made and decisions about children are decided. Unfortunately Best Interest Principle is nothing more than a slogan, it has no legal, scientific or moral value. It was said that; Best Interests operates as an empty vessel into which adult prejudices and beliefs are poured. There is no known method of demonstrating or measuring Best Interests of the Child Principle. When measured scientifically to the benefit of the child, it was found that 80% of Cared For children have very poor outcomes in life. Would you attend a doctor if you were told that 80% of their patients got worse instead of better? Every year the Child Protection Systems of each country get bigger and bigger. Calling Social Services has now become the weapon-of-choice for vindictive people to abuse others. NGO's posing as Children's Charities increase their staff and budgets every year. Legal budgets increase every year as more and more children are removed from families. Large corporations are now taking over Care for governments and raking in millions. The only thing that is not increasing is child abuse or neglect, at least if the crime statistics are to be believed. We are led to believe that child abuse and neglect is at epidemic proportions, but fewer and fewer people are prosecuted in Criminal Courts every year. Through secrecy, and the fact that there is a tendency for every organisation to grow if left unchecked, the Child Abuse Industry is now out of control. The evidence is growing, the next time you see a homeless youth begging for money on the street, ask them if they were in Care. The measure of any system is the final product it delivers, and this does not bode well for the Child Protection System in any country.The measure of our humanity, is how a society treats its most vulnerable citizens. 70 years of Sociology and Psychology has tried to prove that Family' is an outdated concept with its vestiges in our tribal roots, it pretends to know better than nature and eons of evolution, which designed the family to protect children. Sociology replaced Eugenics as a form of Government control of the population but in that time has not shown any history of excellence. There are better options, and these and many other topics are covered in this book.

Joe Burns, Ph.D. began writing HTML tutorials in 1994 to be able to remember complex commands while teaching. Less than a month after his first five HTML Goodies tutorials were available, they were the most visited pages on the university Web site. At one point, the tutorials were taken down for a short while because the volume of visitors was putting too much of a strain on the server. The site exploded into millions of visitors in 1996 when seven HTML primers and 10 new tutorials were added to the first five to create HTMLGoodies.com. HTML Goodies is now the largest HTML help site on the Web, supporting over 180 tutorials, hundreds of free images, and numerous bad jokes.

The site serves close to 8 million page views a month from a mind-boggling number of users. The site has won over 170 awards, been reviewed favorably in national newspapers and magazines, and continues to grow.

Burns holds a Ph.D. in communications from Bowling Green State University. He's currently a professor of communications at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he lives with his wife and two cats, Mardi and Chloe.