What about addressing the physical and sexual abuse of children as a national emergency?

Andrew Vachss wrote in Mask Market, pages 103-104:

“Producers spun their Rolodexes, and the lucky winners got to be on television, “analyzing” what happened. None of them went near the truth. I knew that truth. The kid was a member of a bigger tribe than you could ever find on a reservation. My tribe. The Children of the Secret. We know.

The experts droned on about “communication” and “reaching out” and “peer rejection.” But this kid hadn’t flown under the radar. Everyone around him knew he was buried in despair. They probably figured they knew the outcome, too – the suicide rate on reservations is right up there with the alcoholism level.

That kid was just another of the invisible ones – bullied, beaten, and belittled every day of his marginalized life. If anyone had the slightest idea that he might be a danger to someone other than himself, they would have unleashed a snowstorm of “services.” Suicide, well, kids do that kind of thing. Homicide – now, that’s serious.

Every high school in America has them, the invisible ones. They all silent-scream the same warning: If you won’t see us, you’ll never see us coming.

But nobody ever starts the analysis until after the autopsy.