Adoptive Parents With Criminal Records

I'm so sorry about your situation. I've read a lot of posts recently from adoptees who suffered abuse at the hands of their adoptive parents, and this terrifies me. I'm not losing sight of the fact that abuse also occurs in biological families. I realize that a person does not necessarily have to have a criminal record to be an abuser. But I don't think this means we should just disregard criminal records as meaningless. I work with young children, and in my state, you have to have a full background and criminal check (and a clean record...not just clean of violent crimes and crimes against children, but of ALL felonies) even to WORK with children... I think the same should apply to adopting children. It might not end child abuse, but it might head off obvious potential risks. Sometimes people are arrested by mistake, sometimes there's a totally logical explanation behind it; I realize this. But other times, when a person is arrested for something (DWI, for example) that is not the first time they've engaged in that particular behavior, it's only the first time they've been caught. It would be nice if all potential birthmoms could really get to know the adoptive parents before deciding which ones to entrust their child to. However, this is not always possible, and it becomes even less possible when birthmoms don't have access to pertinent information. _Sharon