The Recipe of Abuse is Calculated and Persistent

Latoya’s story

Latoya was placed in care as a child after witnessing her mother’s murder. She became a juvenile offender after defending herself in a group home fight and as an adult, another fight put her in prison. Latoya loses her children when two of them miss school in the winter because she can’t afford bus tokens. Latoya’s case is ineptly handled. She is accused of abusing her youngest child—a year before his actual birth. Her case is split between two judges: one adopts out three of her children, while the other rules that the remaining three should come home. Latoya is unsettled, believing that her adventures with DHS have made her a worse mother.

Latoya’s case exposes system abuse she was abused and neglected by the foster care system as a child, and then the system repeated the cycle of loss and trauma in her adult life. The system neglected her emotional needs as a child despite her seeing her mother killed at age five, punished her for fighting to survive the hostile group home, failed to support her healthy boundaries by allowing her to get married hastily to an older man, and then removed her chldren, chastising her for not parenting the way the system wanted her to but never taught her to.
Through blame, criticism, one-way help (condescension), and punishment, the cycle is repeated in spite of producing negative results, trauma is in charge. While many are quick to identify how abuse is carried out by individuals, many have a blind spot regarding the ways systems are abusive. We rarely think of this as “abuse.” Yet classic components of abuse are present: physical or psychological harm, repeated occurrences, intention to intimidate, harm, and demean. While there has been much attention given to the law enforcement system in the past years, it is certainly not the only system that can be abusive.