People occasionally ask whether or not I changed after having kids. The biggest way that I’ve changed is that I can’t stomach horror tales of child abuse. It actually makes me ill.

The big news around here is a mentally unstable woman on Long Island stabbed and drowned her three kids. One of the kids’ fathers called child protective services three days earlier to say that he thought that the woman was going to hurt the kids. Child protective services made some half hearted phone calls and then dropped the ball.

We hear this story over and over. Overworked caseworkers let things slide and a kid ends up dead. An effective child protective agency would seem to be something that everybody, regardless of political ideology, wants. Even the most doctrinaire of libertarians is in favor of government oversight of children’s welfare. Why do these screw ups keep happening?