Throwaway Kids
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Throwaway Kids was a two-part investigative report airing on the ABC News magazine 20/20 in 1981.
The report followed a nine-month undercover investigation by producers Karen Burnes and Bill Lichtenstein, and detailed the documented abuse, neglect, and deaths among those in the care and custody of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, including children, the aged, and those with mental illness. The report focused on the state's "warehousing" of children, many of whom were in state custody for being abused or abandoned. In turn, the state received per diem federal funds for each child in its custody, but it failed to provide services for the children with the revenue.
At the time of the story, there was no foster care program in Oklahoma, so children who were abandoned, abused, neglected, or in need of supervision, were placed in large, outmoded, state-run institutions, many of which were located in rural areas of the state, and were without services or proper care. Lichtenstein and Burnes obtained thousands of pages of confidential "Abuse Reports," generated by state workers and kept by the Department of Human Services, detailing the mistreatment of children in state's custody, ranging from beatings to children being locked in isolation for weeks at a time. There were also numerous unexplained deaths at the state hospital for children with mental retardation, which the investigation showed were the result of neglect and abuse by state workers. [1]
Producer Karen Burnes filming "Throwaway Kids" for ABC News 20/20 in Oklahoma, 1981.
Producer Bill Lichtenstein in Oklahoma during production of "Throwaway Kids" for ABC News 20/20, 1981.
Lichtenstein and Burnes were part of a team of reporters who collaborated on the investigation, which included ABC's Sylvia Chase, Pulitzer Prize-winners John Hanchette and Carlton Sherwood of Gannett News Service, and the investigative team from local TV station KOCO, which was an ABC afiiliate and was owned by Gannett. This unprecedented investigation, involving national and local broadcast and print reporters, culminated with articles published by Gannett, a special two-part report on 20/20, "Throwaway Kids," produced by Burnes and Lichtenstein, and a series, "Oklahoma Shame," which aired locally in Oklahoma City on KOCO-TV. The series was honored with a 1982 Peabody Award and a National Headliner Award, and was nominated for a national news Emmy Award.
In late-1982, Lloyd E. Rader, Sr., the director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, resigned after 31 years amidst a state investigation of financial misconduct involving patronage and illegal corporate hirings and abuse of the state bid system including that Rader had used state funds to hire private detectives to follow and harass the reporters investigating the Department of Human Services, and that he had used state workers to build a clinic for his son, Lloyd Rader, Jr., a doctor. [2]Today, the Oklahoma Department of Human Service has almost eight thousand employees and a budget of $1.4 billion from state and federal funding.[3] Currently the Department is involved in another lawsuit, with the advocacy group "Children's Rights," over its treatment of juveniles in state custody.
References
Carlton Sherwood Wiki Biography ^ http://www.newsok.com/article/2169802?searched=lloyd%20rader&custom_click=search ^ Oklahoma Historical Society - Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - RADER, LLOYD EDWIN, SR. (1906-1986)