BABY SAFE HAVEN OFFERS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR WOMEN WHO DO NOT WANT TO CARE FOR THEIR NEWBORNS

Recently, there have been horrific headlines in the newspapers.  A woman hid her pregnancy from everyone around her.  When she gave birth to a baby girl that she didn’t want, she put the child in a bag on her back porch.  Her newborn daughter died of hypothermia and asphyxiation.  This is something that should never have happened. 

If you are pregnant with an unwanted child, there are alternatives.  Baby Safe Haven, a program implemented in December of 2000, allows you to leave your newborn baby, within five days of the birth of your baby, at any Brooklyn hospital emergency room or firehouse, and you will not face any criminal charges as long as the newborn is unharmed. 

This can be done in secrecy.  You do not have to identify yourself, you will not have to answer any questions, and the police will not be called.  The baby will be given personal care and medical attention and will ultimately be placed in foster care or put up for adoption. 

Baby Safe Haven is a joint program with the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, the Police Department, the Fire Department and Brooklyn’s hospitals.  It provides a safe alternative to abandonment and unites prosecutors, medical professionals, and child protective agencies in the mission to prevent the death of newborn infants. 

For more information about Baby Safe Haven, visit www.brooklynda.org or click on this link: http://www.brooklynda.org/baby_safe_haven/baby_safe_haven.htm

The news articles below, courtesy of the National District Attorneys’ Association (ndaa.org), are about cases in other jurisdictions.

WEB 'PREDATOR' SENTENCED

A Naperville, Ill. man who attempted to contact as many as 50 young girls a day through the popular MySpace.com Web site was sentenced Tuesday to 42 months in prison for sexually molesting a 15-year-old Naperville girl he met through the Internet.
 

John R. Wentworth, 28, pleaded guilty March 7 to aggravated criminal sexual abuse and indecent solicitation of a minor. He was sentenced by DuPage Judge Perry Thompson.
 

The victim contacted police in November 2005 after her father gave her an article about Internet predators. The girl told police she had met Wentworth on four occasions, including at her home and the city library.

She said on one visit to her home Wentworth kissed and fondled her.
 

An undercover officer assumed the girl's Internet identity and continued talking to Wentworth.
 

Wentworth was arrested in May 2006 after arranging to meet the girl at Naperville's downtown skate park.
 

Assistant State's Atty. Demitri Demopoulis said a police search of Wentworth's computer indicated he was sending 25 to 50 e-mails daily "fishing for responses from young girls."

 
He said about 20 young girls eventually contacted Wentworth, including the girl he is charged with molesting.
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704100511apr11,1,636934,print.story?coll=chi-news-hed

For more information on Internet Safety, click here: 

http://www.brooklynda.org/strangers_in_the_net/strangers_in_the_net.htm

KLAN-BUSTERS FIGHTING ON A NEW FRONT

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which waged a 20-year campaign against hate groups by suing them in court for money damages, is turning its legal firepower against violence directed at immigrants.
 

The law center is suing two members of the Imperial Klans of America who are serving prison terms for beating a 16-year-old U.S. citizen of Panamanian Indian descent at a Kentucky fair in July.

The lawsuit alleges that Jarred Hensley, 24, of Cincinnati and Andrew Watkins, 26, of Louisville mistook Jordan Gruver for an illegal Hispanic immigrant and beat him severely, breaking his jaw and left arm and cracking two ribs.

The lawsuit, filed in February in Meade County Circuit Court in Kentucky, is the first by the law center aimed at combating a rise in violence against immigrants, according to Morris Dees, the center's founder. "The biggest thing fueling hate groups is Latino migration into this country, (people) who are perceived as harming America," Dees said.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the center sued Ku Klux Klan groups that targeted African-Americans. It won multimillion-dollar judgments, which forced some of the groups into bankruptcy.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-10-klan_N.htm