Ugly Loophole

"A convicted rapist was able to take in 23 foster kids after moving from Washington to upstate New York because the state only checks applicants against its own fingerprint files, a new report has found."

The story is in the New York Daily News.

We set up systems to protect people, and especially children, but these systems are not foolproof. People fall through the cracks, mistakes are made, etc.

But sometimes, the absurd ugliness hits you full in the face.

"When he applied to be a foster dad in 2001, Chaney, now 54, disclosed he was convicted of the 1989 rape of a teenage girl." [emphasis mine]

On an entirely different note, the headline for this story reads:

Loophole let perv take in foster kids

The word "perv" strikes me as crass sensationalism, rather than aloof reportage. "Rapist" would have been sufficient and accurate. Do we need our newspapers to sound like a 1980's PG-13 movie? Bleh.