According to a recent op-ed piece by Bill Johnson at The Denver Post, 179 kids have been killed by abuse or neglect over the last 7 years in Colorado. It’s difficult to even fathom how many of those deaths could have been avoided if there were adequate state resources to address the problem.

A subject that Johnson doesn’t broach, but is absolutely relevant to those tragic deaths, is the number of abused kids we end up incarcerating rather than treating. The tragic and well documented fact is that the State of Colorado doesn’t have the resources to follow up on every alleged abuse, but when abused children attempt to defend themselves–when they sometimes kill to defend themselves–we waste no expense in prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.

That’s what happened to Jacob Ind. It’s what has happened to dozens of Colorado prisoners.

Why? How can we let tragedies like these happen? Is it so we can claim to be “tough on crime?” Is it because we just don’t have the time to care? Maybe someone should ask the Colorado Department of Corrections. Maybe we should ask the Colorado District Attorney’s Counsel. Or better yet, maybe we should ask our state legislators. Someone has to have an answer. Maybe we should accept the shame, as Bill Johnson suggests, and start by asking ourselves–no link provided.