Professor Nina Kohn on ProPublica’s Article on the Public Guardianship System: “There’s a profound lack of monitoring by the courts.”

Professor Nina Kohn provided perspective to MarketWatch on the public guardianship system covered in the recent ProPublica news story “Bedbugs, Rats and No Heat: How One Woman Endured a Decade of Neglect in New York’s Guardianship System”.

Speaking to MarketWatch about the story, Kohn said “We really have no idea how common [cases of abuse] are, because there is a woeful lack of data about what is going on. We have known for decades that vulnerable people are placed in guardianships and then courts fail to engage in any meaningful monitoring of those arrangements to make sure that they are actually protected.”

Kohn continues that the blame is “a profound lack of monitoring for much of the problem. And that’s on the courts.”

Kohn served as the Uniform Law Commission Reporter for the Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements Act.