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Op-Ed: Child protectors - Who are the real abusers?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ld-protectors/
Op-Ed: Child protectors Who are the real abusers? Stephen M. Krason Friday, June 20, 2008 With the dust now settled on the Texas raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) ranch, it is necessary to put this episode into the broader context of the child protective system (CPS) in the U.S. First, springing into action after anonymous calls like the one that triggered the raid is customary for the CPS, in spite of normal legal standards for informant reliability. The call was apparently from a Colorado woman who had no connection with the FLDS and had pled guilty to a previous false report. Second, the Texas heavy-handedness is typical of the CPS, except on a much larger scale. Even though state laws normally require an "emergency" situation before children can be removed, the CPS often does it regardless. Third, the CPS often acts without proof, as it did here. Parents - all parents, not just FLDS types, are under suspicion. Somehow, if there is a report, no matter how baseless, there just had to be abuse or neglect. The CPS routinely assumes parents are guilty, and it is up to them to prove their innocence. Fourth, the case showed that juvenile courts frequently are part of the CPS enforcement structure, taking their cues from the agencies instead of being impartial arbiters. Fifth, it has been observed that parents before the CPS have fewer due-process rights than murder defendants. In Texas, the children were seized without even an evidentiary hearing. Sixth, even when the CPS has found no evidence of abuse, it used its wedge to keep interfering in the ongoing functioning of families. The "parenting" classes and regular agency monitoring of the FLDS parents are typical conditions imposed on innocent parents by the CPS to keep exerting its control. Seventh, far from doing what's best for children, the CPS often makes decisions that are harmful for them. Research has shown that even a mild CPS interference in a family can have deleterious consequences for the parent-child relationship. Outright separation, as in the FLDS case, can cause children psychological and even physical problems, and can heighten conflict between the parents. By readily putting children into the tumultuous foster-care system, they expose them to the possibility of true abuse. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data has shown the rate of child maltreatment in foster care to be 75 percent higher than in the general population. HHS statistics also show that, consistently, about two-thirds of the complaints that CPS investigates are unfounded, involving 700,000 innocent families each year. Many "confirmed" cases involve minor matters that hardly constitute abuse or neglect or else are poverty situations. This massive CPS intervention into families has resulted in a misallocation of resources and inattentiveness to true cases of abuse. As one writer put it, it is a system that can't distinguish the criminals from the average Joes. Eighth, if the crime of polygamy was the reason for the Texas raid, one wonders why the alleged polygamists were not the ones taken into custody. The CPS routinely seizes the victim instead of the perpetrator. Ninth, the CPS is an arbitrary system. Not only does it believe it can intervene in families without evidence of abuse, but sets the standards - irrespective of the law - of acceptable parental behavior. It forbade FLDS mothers from keeping their babies to nurse them if they were over 12 months old; in other cases, parents are investigated for spanking their children or having home births. This arbitrariness is rooted in the vagueness of the child-abuse laws and in the complete legal immunity of CPS operatives. So, don't expect any lawsuits to come out of the Texas raid. The current CPS, fashioned by the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 (better known as the Mondale Act, after its top congressional advocate, Sen. Walter Mondale, Minnesota Democrat) was a harbinger of developments in the U.S. criminal justice system: increasing arbitrariness, excessive power by the enforcers with weakened judicial oversight and the dissipation of a fault-based standard in the interest of social control. The Texas calamity should result in a sweeping legislative investigation of that state's CPS - and a searching examination and reconsideration of the value of the entire CPS nationwide. Congress showed itself unwilling to undertake this when it pushed through only tangential changes to the Mondale Act in 2003. Perhaps, it is time to assemble a presidential commission made up of objective, independent, and tough-minded people for the task. Stephen M. Krason is professor of political science and legal studies at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. He is co-editor of "Parental Rights and Defending the Family: A Sourcebook," and has written and lectured on the CPS for more than 20 years. |
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Op-Ed: Child protectors - Who are the real abusers?
"Dusty" wrote in Second, the Texas heavy-handedness is typical of the CPS, except on a much larger scale. Even though state laws normally require an "emergency" situation before children can be removed, the CPS often does it regardless. Why don't Americans stop kidding themselves and just admit they want a socialist order where the government controls all of their lives? |
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