Nine children were supposed to be safe. Instead, they were delivered straight into a nightmare.

Authorities in Columbia County, Florida, say nine children were rescued from what deputies described as a “house of horrors,” where years of abuse, neglect, and torture took place under the watch of adults who were trusted to care for them.

According to investigators, this was no ordinary case of hidden dysfunction. It was a calculated environment of cruelty. Some of the children were found to be illiterate, while others didn’t even know their own birthdays. Deputies say a 14-year-old boy was locked inside a cage constructed from plywood and 2x4s, shoved beneath a bunk bed. Others were beaten with a cane, sprayed in the face with vinegar, and forced into manual labor.

But perhaps the most damning detail of all is not only what happened inside those walls, it is how these children ended up there in the first place.

These children weren’t hidden from oversight. They weren’t “off the radar.” They were placed into this home through the very agencies sworn to protect them: DCF, DHR, CWS. The foster and adoption pipeline, often touted as rescue, became their prison.

A witness told deputies the Griffeth family, who fostered and adopted many of the children, specifically targeted African-American children. Instead of providing love and care, they treated them like workers while their biological children were allowed to play and relax.

This wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t oversight. This was the system in action.

When you dig deeper, a pattern emerges. These agencies, whether called DHR, DCF, or CWS depending on the state, run on quotas, funding, and contracts. The more children they move, the more money flows. And in that movement, oversight is treated as an inconvenience.

Drug tests can be falsified. Families can be intimidated by police at the system’s command. Judges look the other way. And foster and adoptive placements, many tied to money and connections, are rubber-stamped without accountability.

The result is children shuffled like merchandise. Parents destroyed. And children like those in Columbia County forced to endure years of torment before anyone steps in.

Yes, the Griffeths deserve to face justice. But if the story ends there, nothing changes. Because behind every so-called “house of horrors” case is an agency that placed those children. A worker who signed the paperwork. A supervisor who approved the home. A system that profits by removing children first, and asking questions later.

That same system has now stepped back in to “rescue” these children, placing them once again into the same pipeline that failed them before. The very people who bred this nightmare are now claiming to be the solution.

Every single child’s story matters. Every placement is a decision that can save or destroy a life. Yet in Houston County, in Columbia County, and across America, the system is showing us again and again that it is not about children at all. It is about control. It is about funding. It is about maintaining power at any cost.

Nine children are alive because deputies finally acted. But survival is not justice. And unless this culture of corruption and neglect is dismantled, there will be more cages, more broken bones, more children who grow up believing they were disposable.