I agree that CPS has an amazing caseload. My daughter was returned to me from her stepmom with her arm dislocated from the elbow. I was told it was common, nursemaid's elbow. The next visit she had a cigarette burn. I tried to receive an order of protection, but was told that the claims could have been accidents.

My other daughter has serious heart/lung issues. This woman continued to smoke with my daughter there. She also "forgot" to give her two doses of her digoxin. I had to stop visitation. She tried to serve papers to me for contempt of court while my daughter was in the PICU at Children's with an acute lung injury after open heart surgery.

At least, her father and stepmom are now getting divorced. Thank God for small favors.

OMG- it is not on the rise-it has always been there. What's happening is the authorities are starting to figure out who's abused and who is not. When someone reports abuse, either themself or someone else, they are emotional unstable. They are upset and emotional distrait. They are mad, angry and hurt. These are their feelings, rightfully so. Then the abuser is interviewed, this person is calm and have it together (they probably had some time).
In my opinion, it's all about who can keep it together in an interview.
If my daughter was raped and I screamed and yelled and cried about my pain (and hers) and threathen to take the person's life-I would be in trouble. If the alleged assailant said no it was what she wanted. She agreed to it. I would have no case. Unless I would pursue it further.
My point: I have seen this many times, when a person calls in an abuse, they are emotional not right. It is assumed that they are not stable. But what CPS doesn't understand is that "who would be stable when needing to call something like this in?"
I'm seriously passionate about this, please respect my blog. I worked at a place where a mother came in saying something is wrong with my baby whenever "it" goes on visitation. (welfare mom, which doesn't hold wait with CPS) I agreed. Something was wrong with the eyes. After being looked at, "authorities" said Nope, baby was okay, mom was just weird. Baby died a fews days later is another's care. Dammit she knew it!! but Court ordered visitation killed that baby. Another, mom pleaded with the courts no visitation because the dad abuses the child. Nope visitation was ordered because he has his rights. But apparently his privledge was to rape his child. And he did.
After alot of unnecessarily drama for the child visitation was "supervised" (r u kidding me?)
Where the child was punished by the dad verbally. The outcome of this story is yet known. Think about it, her father rapes her, not one cares, do you not think that someday she will think about shooting the courthouse apart and what does she care as far as she concerned she has no life anyway.
The problem with out Rock County CPS is that it's a "CLICK" and nobody wants to to any additional education on profiling an abuser or victim. That's my take and that's how I feel And I KNOW DAMN well I could do better. I have education far beyond Social Workers and have applied, but it's who you know!!!!!

this is me - you are so right CPS has an incredible workload. This department is used way too often for harassment. I, too, know a mother of young children. She works hard and provides for her children. On a visitation, a child was assaulted. There is medical proof. The abuser was a prominate wealthy person. Charges were dropped. The mother was labeled as having an alienation syndrome. The mother did write the congressman and senator. The child still sees a counselor because of it.

This article seems dangerously close to profiling......

I read all of your bitches about child abuse and what CPS DOESN'T do, but has anyone taken into consideration the amount of cases that CPS gets a year and how many of them are unsubstantiated. CPS can only give the tools for someone to use. They can't be there to council every minute. That's what personal and professional support groups are for. You can lead a horse to water...

I hear everyone talk about what is not being done, but are any of you doing anything about it? I have an aquaintence that is going through neglect issues with CPS because she works full time, has no family and has two young children (under 10). A single parent. I was more then willing to step in and even though I also work full time and go to school, I offered to take her children if she switched to an opposite shift. I may not be able to give them 100% of my attention at all times, but at least they are not alone in the house for hours at night without adult supervison. Maybe if everyone took a step back and looked at the world around them, they might be able to see someone that might need an extra hand. We are so quick to accuse, but not willing to look at the circumstances surrounding the situations. I'm not saying that everyone who abuses is able to be helped, but you'd be suprised at who might be abusing their child right next door, what actually constitutes as abuse (ever tell your child that something they said or did was stupid...?... abuse), and how little time CPS actually is ALLOWED to spend with each family. Just like any job, they have their policies and procedures that they have to follow. Talk to your congressman and women, your senators, hell, send a letter to Mr. Obama himself asking something to be done about this, but don't bitch and not do anything about it.

biggirl,

I think that the increase of cases mattered to each child that was taken and sexually assaulted. i don;t care if it is one more in a population of one million, that is still one too high,

SarahB, I'm not sure which case it is you are looking at on the CCAP site but the case you are asking about is Rock County case number 2009 CF 263. The next court event is a Preliminary Hearing scheduled for March 24 at 3:30PM in Courtroom L. That's for Cantu.

Witt's case is Rock County case number 2009 CF 277. Her next appearance is scheduled for April 4 at 1:30PM in Courtroom B, Third Floor.

I would guess the comments on the Cantu/Witt story were disabled because, as often happens here, the debate degenerated into childish name calling. We went from discussing the case to "You're an idiot." Which of course accomplishes nothing.

biggirl:I think that any numbers are too many. child abuse is a horrible thing to live through, I would know. As long as there is one case out there it is too many! Can anyone tell me why they disabled the comments from the case where the 2 adults are charged in the 3 year old girl case? Seems to me the truth hurts!

Sad..so sad..I hope these children have good homes they can go to after being beat by parents and caregivers who are suppossed to love & nurture them...

Eight out of ten kids in the foster care system end up in prison, dead, or on the streets..Pray for them!! I was VERY lucky.. I was one who made it...but it was not always that way...I was on that path...

"Economic struggles" my A$#! I and my 4 siblings were raised by a single parent and we were dirt poor yet she never raised a hand to any of us. Likewise, when my husband and I were raising our kids we were the brokest we ever were and there was never any physical, sexual, verbal or any other kind of abuse. I would bet alot of the abuse stems from these lowlife, self-centered, scumbags caring more about the drugs they ingest then the welfare of their kids. And these 2 were let out on "signature bonds". Does the courts think they aren't a threat to the community? If they'd brutalize their own child do you think they would hesitate to do whatever else they felt like if they wanted to? Sorry, I just needed to vent. This subject just makes me sick.

I am wondering why the comments were taken off this site? Were the comments getting people into trouble? Did the DA get too many calls? I know most people are very passionate about this case but we still live in America and free speech I thought was still alive and well in the USA! I guess written words don't come under the heading of free speech!

I will never understand what would drive an adult to harm a child on purpose! It really turns my stomach! I know kids that have been hurt and all cps does is talk,take notes and say oh well! They offer parenting classes yet an abuser that isnt charged cant be forced to go.Even if he/she does go,it wont stop the abuse! To make it worse,cps will go after the wrong person!!!!!!! I hurt my son once(on accident)and felt like a peice of dirt. When he was 2,I grabbed his arm to stop him from touching a red hot stove burner.I only turned away from the stove for a second and there he was! He may have had a bruise,but the burn would have been worse! Cps made me do parenting classes and watched me closely for a while.What about these kids out there that are REALLY being abused?? Cps sends the kids back!

Thank you for this extremely enlightening story regarding abuse and the potential causes behind it. Economic struggles are at the root of most people's problems and with the economy the way it is, awareness regarding the parallel between economic hardship and abuse is paramount in preventing the abuse from occurring. Thank you for this story.

Todd
www.eloquentbooks.com/ChildAbuseandItsLi...

paisleysdaddy, I agree with you 100%

biggirl,
Percentages weren't given, the raw number of cases were given. Regardless of whether or not the numbers are relatively "low," useful statistics can be gathered and statistical significance can be found. I seriously doubt most (or any) statisticians would tell you that numbers that you deem low can't tell us anything.
There is a problem with the statistics given, namely that there are not enough. The Gazette (possibly due to its sources) is only giving us data on two years. Are 16 and 7 pretty average numbers of sexual and physical abuse cases to occur in a year? Have the population and demographics of Janesville stayed relatively steady? A drastic increase in overall population or even a drastic increase in the number of children will create a jump in the number of occurrences without affecting the rate.
Even in your example, a jump from one to two occurrences per year (an increase of 100%, not 50%) may be statistically significant if you have data for a sufficient number of years, one is the average number of occurrences, and you have very little variance among years.
With all that fun discussion of statistical significances, we can't forget to over look the actual significance. Assuming all cases were valid, 16 (or more) children were sexually abused and 7 (or more) were physically abused in 2007. Those numbers are too high. Regardless of whether you or I think that the numbers are statistically significant, the fact that those numbers jumped to 32 and 25 in 2008 is sad. Despite my love of math and statistics, you can't quantify the value of these children nor the harm that was done to them by these acts.

When you have such small numbers, any statistician will tell you, these percentages mean nothing. You have 1 and then 2, it has increased by 50%, but that increase means nothing because the sample is so low. Same thing here.

Can anybody please update me on the abuse case involving the 3-year-old girl that occurred (I believe) earlier this month? Supposedly, Stephanie Witt and Norbert Cantu were arrested and released with a court date. However, there is still nothing posted about this case on the circuit court web site. Please, please don't tell me it is being ignored, forgotten or forgiven. Also, how is the child doing? Last I heard, she had undergone two brain operations.

It doesn't help the situation when CPS doesn't do anything about calls that come in prior to the abuse charges.