Someone in Mansfield is angry

Why shouldn't someone be at fault?
Mansfield News Journal, Dec. 1, 2006.

The issue: Ohio Department of Job and Family Services issues report on the killing of a foster child.

Our opinion: Instead of avoiding blame game, the agency should determine where responsibility lies.

"This is not an attempt to cast blame," Barbara Riley, head of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said of her agency's 34-page report on the care and subsequent killing of 3- year-old foster child Marcus Fiesel.

That's for sure. Rather than cast blame, the report obscures the responsibility for what happened to this helpless child in southwest Ohio.

Marcus, developmentally disabled, was taken from his biological mother by the Butler County Children's Services Board last April because he was neglected.

The county then placed him in the care of a contract agency, Lifeway for Youth, which was paid to find a foster home where Marcus would be safe and well-cared for.

Instead, Lifeway placed him in a home where he was tied up in an overheated closet and left to die. Foster parents David and Liz Carroll are awaiting trial for murder.

But Riley doesn't want to cast blame.

Why not?

Her agency's report makes no assessment of whether taking Marcus from his biological mother was the right course of action. In fact, it spends only three paragraphs of the 34-page report talking about Butler County's actions.

Much of the rest of the report is a bulleted listing of Lifeway's bureaucratic deficiencies. Such as: "Lifeway for Youth overreported the number of foster caregiver training hours the agency provided. Consequently, the Lifeway for Youth recommended the foster parents for certification prior to providing them with the required amount of pre-service training."

Do Riley and her bureaucracy really think Marcus Fiesel was rolled up in a blanket, bound with packing tape and left in a closet over a weekend because the Carrolls, who had several children of their own, hadn't received adequate training?

The people who killed Marcus didn't lack training. They lacked conscience.

Lifeway's failings cannot be overlooked. But Riley and her agency should also be asking how and why the government contracts out its responsibilities to such outfits in the first place.

When she says there should be no attempt to cast blame, she is saying there is no way to ensure such a thing does not happen again.