MANSFIELD: Feel Better Now?

When Sierra Day, the mother of the deceased of 4-year-old Aniya Day-Garrett, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for causing the child’s death, there was jubilation in the courtroom. The horrible tale of neglect painted by the prosecutor Anna Faraglia, who detailed how horribly the child had suffered in her short, tragic life, would bring tears to the eyes of those with even the hardest of hearts. No child should suffer such a fate.

But now that the sense of outrage over the case has receded, if only a bit, we perhaps need to step back and examine what happened.

In countries around the world that have more authoritarian forms of government than the United States, “show trials” are somewhat commonplace. To quell public discontent — or in some cases simply to satisfy the blood lust of the mob — high-profile defendants are given overly harsh sentences simply to rock the public back to sleep. It’s the way those in power convince a gullible populace that they are on their job and whatever problem existed, whatever went wrong is now fixed.

In the Sierra Day/Aniya Day-Garrett case, the overly harsh sentence was handed down by one branch of government — the court — to take the heat off of another branch — the Cuyahoga County’s Department of Children and Family Services — an agency where overwork and understaffing is, unfortunately, considered business as usual.

If you recall, during the period when Aniya died there was a spate of cases of neglect that surfaced, cases that social workers should have intervened on, which is their job. But there has to be enough of them to do their job; they can’t be burdened with excessive caseloads and then still be expected to perform professionally. And then there’s the burnout factor.

But similar to the situation with the Cuyahoga County Jail, the funds simply are not there to hire the people to do the job of protecting the most vulnerable among us in a professional and adequate manner. As a society we cheap out on saving lives, alleviating misery and protecting those at risk until the shit hits the fan — and then we throw a sacrificial lamb on the fire started and propagated by our neglect. We sentence the mother of the child (who clearly was a sick child; did you see her in the courtroom?) to a draconian sentence and pretend that throwing her under the bus for life solves the systemic problem; no, it didn’t. But at least our attention is no longer on Children and Family Services.

Boy, I sure hope all of you sanctimonious sons-of-bitches feel better.

From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.

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2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Feel Better Now?”

  1. Lisa jeter

    This mother was no sacral fiscal lamb! She took her daughter to the slaughter house.
    They have no proof Deonte Lewis harmed this child in any way. Yet he was convicted for a lack of Moraliity! Speaking of sacral fiscal lambs ! He was collateral damage .

  2. Lisa Jeter

    I’m so tired of hearing how overworked these depts are. It would be one thing if they had an any % done with 100% and only a few get done. But that’s not the case! Seldom do they have any cases done at 100%. The need to prioritize and give 100% to the most vulnerable. Which I dare to say are probably fewer than 20% of their workload.

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