Washington City Paper: Contents for Jan. 31

A Leaky receivership
Jerome Miller was granted vast powers to clean up the District's child welfare mess. Eighteen months later, abused and neglected kids continue to tumble through the cracks.

Cover Story

In the introduction to his new book on race and the criminal justice system, Jerome Miller writes that he takes refuge in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who held that "while sins of the intellect may be great, those of passion are more easily forgiven."

After 18 months as the first federally appointed general receiver for the District's child welfare system, Miller's sins might test the absolving powers of Aquinas himself. Vested with near-dictatorial power, Miller was given a broad and historic mandate to transform the agency by almost any means necessary and bring administrative relief to the kids languishing under the District's care. But by any objective standard, his tenure has been fraught with the kind of chaos and crisis that receivership is designed to eliminate. No one said it was going to be easy—the District's child welfare system had a disgraceful and well-deserved reputation for letting down the kids it was designed to protect—but Miller appears to be a victim rather than a master of that same bureaucracy.

Miller's travails are just the latest episode in a long history of bureaucratic abuse and neglect in the District's Department of Human Service (DHS)'s child welfare agency. Years of litigation on behalf of the children served by the agency failed to produce any tangible results, so a limited receivership was put in place on Oct. 1, 1994, and finally, on May 22, 1995, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ordered a full general receivership—making D.C. the first city in the nation to require a federal receiver for its child welfare system.... Continued

Issue of Jan. 31 - Feb. 6, 1997

News and Features

A Leaky receivership
Jerome Miller was granted vast powers to clean up the District's child welfare mess. Eighteen months later, abused and neglected kids continue to tumble through the cracks.
Cover Story By Julie Wakefield
Bombs Away
How Did a Device That Makes Less Noise Than a Firecracker Create an Explosion of Media Coverage?
The City By John Cloud
Radio Radio
EZ Street and Tigger Bend the Ears of Young Washington
The City By Deborah Rouse
Carving a Slice Out of the Pie
If Your Neighborhood's Crime Rate Is Higher Than Peoria's, Don't Expect Pizza Hut to Come Knocking
The City By Esther Babalola
All Wrapped Up and No Place to Go
The Mail By Kristin McCarthy
Joel Call
The Mail By Mark Williams
Circle Dream
The Mail By Donald Smith
Circle of Life
The Mail By Jack Reed

Columns

Yankees, Stay Home!
Cheap Seats By Dave McKenna
Car 54, Where Are You?
City Desk
The Fighting Ward 6
Loose Lips By Ken Cummins

Eats

Tiramisu Story
Young & Hungry By Brett Anderson

Movies

Animal House
Film Review By Arion Berger
Thieves Like Us
Film Review By Mark Jenkins

Music

The Carnegie Hall Concert
Music Review By Rickey Wright
Fuzzy Logic
Music Review By John Dugan
Horn Rock Bands
Music Review By Dave Nuttycombe

Theater

Short Cuts
Theater Review By Trey Graham
Sofa's Choice
Theater Review By Bob Mondello

Arts and Events

Impressionist on the Scene
Artifacts By Bob Mondello
I Love Lucifer
Artifacts By Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
7 and 7 Is
Artifacts By Christopher Porter
So Much for Him
Arts By Trey Graham
It Could Lead to Dancing
Books By Arion Berger
Cat-and-Bull Story
Opera By Joe Banno
Honky -Tonk Heroes
Jon Langford and the Waco Brothers dig up the bones of Nashville
Arts By Eddie Dean