Ever since the Susan Smith case in South Carolina, nothing can be taken off the table from the onset in the law enforcement point of view.  Ask any big city cop, in particular.  Criminal parents DO exist… and as never before in their frequency. 

Certainly, there have always been criminal parents who have neglected and exploited their children to sometimes lethal degrees.  Often, these parents were abused children themselves and thus had their own parental instincts muted by the experience… although this is hardly an excuse.  But never before have we seen so many horrendous crimes by parents against their children because they came to regard them either as sex objects, failed emotional/financial crutches or as inconvenient subhuman creatures. 

The promulgation of this attitude, I maintain, can be traced to the dehumanization of our culture.  This influence is now so widespread and available to children themselves that it, in effect, puts its stamp on the immature psyche and becomes solidified upon maturity.  From the baby boomer generation onward, this effect has grown to ever greater degrees.  And, with it, so have the instances of crimes against and by children. 

If that potential is there in a parent’s mind, it can take as little as a media reported case of such a crime to set them off.  This last instance, one might note, happened in Florida and followed on the heels of two other widely reported crimes there of child murder with the mothers as the prime suspects.  ”Copy Cat” crimes against children… and by their own mothers?!  It cannot be automatically discounted.  Not anymore.

Warning signs for police.  Single mother or estranged parents.  Known drug or alcohol abuse.  Uncertain financial state.  Police record (a string of petty crimes only can still be indicative).  Previous signs in the child of abuse or neglect.  Status among neighbors.  State of the home (many tip-offs here, sometimes subtle).  Behavior AFTER the child goes missing (such as a wildly emotional appeal to media, blame on a general “usual suspect” type, notable carefree lifestyle afterward, etc.).  Associates of known or suspected criminality.  And, as always, a stash of pornographic material.

When a sense of personal entitlement prevails, it can grow to negate not only the higher instincts, but the fundamental ones as well.  Abuse, exploitation and even the murder of one’s own children can be the result.  It doesn’t just happen in Hollywood.   

It should also be noted that this area contained an unusual number of registered sex offenders.  They, in this case, were rapidly removed from the suspect list during the natural first phase of investigation.  So… who does that leave in the process of elimination?  Naturally (as in the Dugard case) the possibility of an outside pervert picking a “target of opportunity” is always there.  But, as is most often in all crimes against women and children, the perpetrator will be someone the victim knows.  With children; most often a family member or other close authority figure.  Police are well aware of these facts.

Good citizens should be aware of those facts, as well.  We’re not just our brother’s keeper.  We, as adults, are secondary parents to every child with whom we come in contact.  A misguided sense of “minding one’s own business” should not deter us from, at least, expressing our concerns when we suspect that a child is being abused, neglected or exploited by parents or guardians.  Such a child must be assumed to be in mortal peril; either in the course of that abuse or as the prelude to premediated tragedy.