Jahmeik Modlin was four years old and 19 pounds when he died of starvation in the hands of his parents. “The refrigerator stocked with food in his family’s apartment was turned around so that neither he nor his siblings (ages five, six, and seven) could access it,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Naomi Schaefer Riley writes in the current issue of National Review. “The other three were hospitalized as a result of severe malnourishment.”

Even none other than the infamous Al Sharpton believes that government, namely child protective services and law enforcement, failed Jahmeik. Jahmeik’s aunt has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. While Sharpton is no stranger to making himself part of headline news, his interest might suggest that a tide is turning and the welfare of children in abusive homes might get new prioritization.

Riley is the author of No Way to Treat a Child: How the Foster Care System, Family Courts, and Racial Activists Are Wrecking Young Lives.

Join her live in conversation with me on Wednesday afternoon, January 8 at 3 E.T.

Use the same link to get the recording delivered to your inbox after the live discussion. To read her article now — and get access to the full 100th-anniversary issue of National Review’s founder, William F. Buckley Jr. — information is here.

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