Unfortunately, child abuse and neglect is all too common in our society. In fact, in the year 2000, over one million children were victims of child abuse. And while every case is a horror in itself, there are some cases that are so deplorable - that they make everyone who reads about it shudder. The most recent case of this magnitude comes out of Collingswood, New Jersey.

Last Friday, officials were called to the home of Vanessa and Raymond Jackson when a neighbor discovered their 19-year-old son rummaging through the trash for food. When the officials entered the home - they uncovered one of the most despicable cases of child abuse - and one the worst cases of neglect by a state agency that I have ever heard of.

It turns out that the Jacksons starved their four adopted boys - ages 19, 14, 10 and 9 - so badly that they were eating pieces of the wall and the insulation behind it. When they were fed, they were only given uncooked pancake batter, peanut butter and jelly and cereal. Basically, they were locked out of the family's kitchen and even forced to watch the other children in the family enjoy full meals and even take out while they slowly starved. This ongoing abuse lasted so long that when officials found the four boys - the 19-year-old was only four feet tall and weighed forty-five pounds - the size of an average eight-year-old.

If the abuse by the parents is not enough to make your stomach turn, how about the fact that officials from the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) visited the house an unbelievable thirty-eight times over the last few years - and found no problems in the household or with the starving boys.

So let me get this straight, officials that are trained to recognize abuse and neglect enter a house over three dozen times where a child that is nineteen looks eight, where there are locks on the kitchen door - and where kids are forced to eat pieces of a wall - and walk away thinking everything is peachy? I don't know who should be charged with worse charges of abuse - the deplorable "parents" - or the incompetent "officials."

As for the charges, the "parents" are being charged with four counts of aggravated assault and fourteen counts of child endangerment, and nine "officials" were fired from the DYFS and face criminal charges themselves. Personally, I think no amount of charges or jail time will make up for the horrors these children had to endure while their supposed caregivers did anything but give care - and those hired to protect them from monsters such as the Jacksons turned a blind eye to their appalling actions. What needs to happen to everyone involved in this easily avoidable tragedy is to be locked in a prison cell and starved to the same point that those four innocent boys were - and have the prison guards simply ignore their rumbling stomachs.