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Child abuse prevention
involves community

THE ISSUE A court hearing reveals that a 5-year-old girl suffered abuse for months before her death.

The death of a 5-year-old girl raises disturbing questions about how to prevent abuse and neglect of children and how, despite a wealth of programs and efforts of social workers and authorities, a child's safety depends primarily on a family's stability.

Nonetheless, state child protection agencies and especially the military should carefully review the events that led to Talia Williams' death so that others do not meet similar fates. While abuse might be impossible to eliminate, children must be kept from danger.

Talia is just the most recent victim of abuse to receive public attention, following the reports of other children like Peter Kema, the Big Island boy who has been missing for more than eight years and is believed dead.

Prevent Child Abuse Hawaii reports that 6,000 cases of suspected child abuse are reported every year in the state and that incidences have increased sharply. Further, more than 50 percent of reported abuse cases have been confirmed here compared to 28 percent nationwide.

However alarming the numbers, they cannot match the terror of children who suffer beatings and neglect at the hands of those who are supposed to care for them.

Talia reportedly was beaten nearly every day, apparently because she wet herself, and was left unclothed in a bare room without furnishings or bedding. Her stepmother, who has been charged with murder, says she repeatedly sought help from family, friends and the Army. Talia's father, a Schofield soldier, is in military custody and was charged yesterday with murder and five other counts. Another family member says she alerted state authorities, but a human services agency spokesman said an anonymous caller did not provide enough information to locate the girl.

The legal system eventually will assign blame for Talia's death, but there is a lot to go around. The moral responsibility to keep children from harm lies with all of us.

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Ruling will inhibit
attendance at hearings

THE ISSUE The Supreme Court has ruled that spectators at public hearings may be required to show identification and sign logs.

ACCESS to public hearings in Hawaii is no longer guaranteed to those who wish to remain anonymous. A state Supreme Court ruling that agencies can require the taking of names of people attending hearings will have a chilling effect on the extent to which they are open to the public. State and county officials who take advantage of this unfortunate ruling will stand in the way of open government.

Ronald Sakata, head of the Judiciary's Administrative Driver's License Revocation Office, imposed the Orwellian requirement in May 2001 that people attending revocation hearings sign in and show a photo ID. He maintained that spectators would be less likely to be disruptive if their identities were revealed, although such hearings have never been disrupted.

In a 4-1 ruling this week, the Supreme Court found the procedure to be "reasonably tailored to meet the security needs" of the agency, even though former Honolulu Police Chief Michael Nakamura described it as "not absolutely useless, (but) close to it." The state Department of Public Safety has described security measures that are appropriate, and taking names is not on the list.

In authoring a ruling last year that ordered Sakata's office to conduct a hearing on the issue, Justice Simeon Acoba cited a 1983 federal appeals court decision that public access to courts can be limited "to keep order and dignity in the courtroom."

However, in the sole dissent of the new ruling, he asserted that the sign-in procedure "will have a deleterious and potentially inhibiting effect" on the right to attend public hearings, "but more troubling, diverts focus in any particular case from measures actually aimed at preventing and ensuring safety."

People might think twice before attending criminal trials of their friends lest their names be checked against computer files. Citizens might hesitate in attending legislative hearings lest they be put on political mailing lists.

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