Open Letter on Child Abuse Task Force
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
2-07-2006
Dear Commissioner Heimlich:
In 2003 and 2004, you were featured in local media stories discussing the need for a task force designed to protect parents from being wrongfully accused of child abuse. I am writing this letter to find out more information about this task force, and to request records (through an open records request) about your own specific involvement in establishing the details of this task force. While I understand the need to protect parents from wrongful accusations, I am concerned about how this task force may relate to rehabilitation facilities with a known record of abusing children, like Kids Helping Kids in Milford.
Kids Helping Kids is associated with the former (and controversial) Straight, Inc. This organization has a long history of using bizarre and abusive, cult-like tactics to modify the behavior of teenagers—some may even call it brainwashing. In fact, the outfit bears a striking resemblance, in this capacity, to the Bill Gothard secular movement of which you are a part. As reported by WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Character Institute “Training Centers” have also been grounds for similar cases of abuse.
In fact, Straight, Inc.‘s “humble pants” bear a striking resemblance to “prayer rooms.” Check out these excerpts:
Just one of many survivors is Samantha Monroe, now a travel agent in Pennsylvania, who told The Montel Williams show this year about overcoming beatings, rape by a counselor, forced hunger, and the confinement to a janitor’s closet in “humble pants”—which contained weeks of her own urine, feces and menstrual blood. During this “timeout,” she gnawed her cheek and spat blood at her overseers.
—from “Ambassador de Sade,” by John Gorenfeld
She tells News 8 she was also locked in the prayer room more than once, “I didn’t get any food or water those five days so that was extremely difficult on me physically as well.”
—from WISH-TV
I mention these things because they provide the context for my questions about your task force.
1. Is this task force still active? If so, in what capacity? How would you describe the nature of its work?
2. In what capacity do these policies that you support also protect places like Kids Helping Kids when they are accused of child abuse?
Thank you for your time in addressing these concerns. I know you value character traits like punctuality and truthfulness, so I am confident you will give me a timely and transparent reply.
Respectfully,
The Dean of Cincinnati