CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) — An investigation by 19 News has found that legal loopholes put victims of domestic violence at extreme risk. What the law would not include is that offenders convicted of domestic violence would still be allowed to keep their firearms. Stories of abuse told by reports from NBC News, the Kansas City Star and others prompted Missouri lawmakers to hold hearings last month and propose legislation to strengthen state oversight. Alumni of Agapé and Circle of Hope feel that the momentum is turning in their direction. Although Miraschon manipulated her bet to make sure the JoJo team loses and has to donate her organs at her collectible booth, Marilyn Manson, Jolyne still wins due to a formality due to a flaw that says she needs a betting partner she didn`t have and so used an innocent supervisor at the last minute while stealing her baseball with Stone Free, to win the bet. At a hearing in the Missouri Legislature on Wednesday, a department official said it had been difficult to substantiate allegations of abuse in religious residential schools because of a „culture of restricted access.“ The committee is reviewing bills introduced by Ingle and a Republican colleague last month to give the Missouri Department of Social Services oversight of religious residential schools. The legislation would require schools to register with the state and create channels for the state to conduct safety inspections of facilities and close them after allegations of abuse. There has not yet been a vote, but the main Republicans in the legislature have already shown their support. Sometimes the loophole doesn`t really exist, but the competitor is convinced that it is because of their own misinterpretation of the rules.
When explaining the existence of the loophole, a justification is sometimes that when the rule was drafted, the abuse of the loophole seemed absurd enough that no one would ever be stupid enough to try. It is a form of refuge in Audacity. The comically wordy contract often contains them, especially if it is a deal with the devil. Montana officials testified at the hearings that they were „frustrated with the complaints filed against several programs that were outside the regulations“ and that some — they did not say which ones — were trying to avoid licensing by fraudulently pretending to be part of a church. Officials also said that even if child protection services found that someone had abused a child in a religious youth facility, there were no rules to prevent the person from continuing to work there. At least in Missouri, that could change. After allegations of abuse spread on TikTok last spring at the Circle of Hope Girls` Ranch, a religious residential school near Agapé, the Cedar County Sheriff`s Department launched an investigation that the attorney general joined and is still ongoing. After the state removed students from school in August, Circle of Hope voluntarily closed. The action also woke up agapé alumni and they started telling their stories in local media and podcasts. In November, Schrag joined nearly two dozen men and women protesting in Agapé, holding signs that read „Torture is not treatment“ and „Lies will no longer protect you.“ There are so many examples of abuse of loopholes in real legal systems that we had to divide them into a separate page.
In real life, it`s more difficult for two simple reasons: first, flaws are quickly closed once discovered, sometimes thanks to an obvious patch of rules. Second, many systems have the zero rule: an arbitrator, judge, or designated authority figure has the absolute last word and can simply reject the argument at all levels, usually by asserting that the „spirit“ of the rule never intended to allow what the „letter“ of the rule seems to say. On the other hand, some „loopholes“ were actually exceptions that were included in the rule for a reason and, as such, are (or have become) part of the rule. Circle of Hope was opened in 2006 by Boyd Householder, a former employee of Agapé, as a school for rebellious teenage girls. In May, his daughter Amanda and the women who visited Circle of Hope began posting videos on TikTok describing violent restrictions, hunger, and emotional abuse at the ranch. (Householder denied that any abuses had occurred at the ranch.) „I absolutely believe I was abused one hundred percent,“ she told 7News. People had reported Circle of Hope at least 19 times since it opened to three sheriff`s departments, state child protection and education officials, traffic police and the state attorney general`s office, according to interviews and recordings obtained by NBC News. The state`s department of social services found in a preliminary finding in 2018 that Householder had physically abused a minor, according to court documents — but this was not made public and the school enrolled students for more than two years before being voluntarily closed. Someone – usually a rules lawyer – is doing something outrageous by finding a loophole in rules that have been drafted too narrowly to consider such possibilities. This allows the agent to enforce their will while claiming that they are technically following the rules.
The new crime is used in cases where a child or vulnerable adult intentionally suffers serious injury and it is clear that one of the members of a closed group of people inflicted the injuries, but there is not enough evidence to prove who is responsible. This loophole in the law has allowed those who injure a child or vulnerable adult to escape justice by remaining silent, accusing or lying to each other. CPA data suggest that in 2010, there were more than 20 cases where the proposed legislation could have been enforced. Several examples refer to the former name of this trope, Ain`t No Rule (named after a specific situational flaw). Compare No Man of Woman Born and Puzzle Thriller. Compare the rules, I`ll do them. Also, contrast with Bothering by the Book, where someone becomes a pest by following the rules to the letter without looking for escapes. If anyone else finds a loophole, it`s my rule Fu is stronger than yours. Not unknown as a subversion of simply following exact commands and words. If a rule is introduced only to close the loophole, you have an obvious rule fix. The Ministry of Social Services declined to comment on its investigations into agapé and interviews with students, and would not release the records, but said there had been no substantiated reports of abuse or neglect at the school. And it`s not just Missouri.
An investigation by NBC News and Dateline found that several states had similar gaps in the oversight of religious residential schools, leaving children vulnerable to abuse. At least two other states – Montana and Arkansas – are abolishing license exemptions for religious institutions. And in at least 14 other states, education and child welfare authorities exempt boarding schools from licensing if they are privately owned or privately funded. Once Keri Ingle, a Democratic congresswoman from Kansas City, Missouri, and a former child protection investigator, read the allegations of abuse at the Circle of Hope Girls` Ranch last year, she called for hearings. Terry says that after years of psychological and physical abuse, she was beaten so badly that she was afraid to lay charges against her attacker. „I can`t find any scripture in the Bible that says it is acceptable to physically or sexually abuse children, starve them as a means of punishment, withhold medication, deprive them of sleep, force them to do manual labor,“ Ingle said. „If you use the Bible or God to justify any of these things, it`s sacrilege. This is blasphemous. Terry feels that since the police had the evidence, they should have laid charges against her executioner anyway. BOSTON (WHDH) — A rift in the state of Massachusetts is preventing prosecutors from prosecuting teachers, coaches and other adults in positions of authority who sexually exploit teenagers in their care.
The Missouri House Committee on Children and Families released a report in November that concluded that „there are many institutions in the state that have abused vulnerable children in their care for many years without state oversight.“ Still, this was just an incomplete picture, based on interviews with former students and information from state officials, as Missouri does not track the number of religious residential schools in the state. UPDATE (February 12, 2021, 2:33 p.m. ET): Following the publication of this article, Cedar County Sheriff James „Jimbob“ McCrary denied a depiction of former student agape Lucas Francis. Francis said Robert Graves, a Cedar County sheriff`s deputy who had worked in Agapé, attended a meeting Francis had with a social worker investigating allegations of abuse at the school. McCrary said in an email Friday that Graves was not present at social workers` interviews with the students. In real life, this is rare for two simple reasons: first, flaws are quickly closed once they are discovered. Second, many systems have the zero rule: an arbitrator, judge, or designated authority figure has the absolute last word. Minnesota has even less control. Its departments of education and social affairs do not allow religious schools or private boarding schools, and child welfare services do not have the power to investigate allegations of abuse or neglect in these schools; Instead, they must pass on these reports to law enforcement. Child protection experts say this becomes more difficult for a state to investigate abuse because the police only investigate what is considered a crime, not what puts a child at risk.
The Missouri Department of Human Services does not conduct regular inspections of private religious schools, but child welfare services and police can investigate whether a particular allegation of abuse is reported.