EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
No issue elicits more intensity, passion and emotion, yet generates so little honest discussion, as the question of how to address child abuse and neglect. Statistics and statements used to justify government programs that would be examined, analyzed and scrutinized anywhere else are considered untouchable here.
It is with this knowledge that the Goldwater Institute decided to study the "investment" claims made about the Success by Six proposal two years ago. We found the claims made about cost savings to be wholly unfounded (Success by Six: Expenditure or Investment, September 1994).
It was, therefore, with a measure of suspicion that we decided to examine the current claims of "success" being made about the Healthy Families component of the Family Stability Act. Here, too, we have found that the assertions by the program's advocates fall far short of reality.
