Child Abuse FAQ Child Abuse FAQ
The public sees child abuse as children with haunted eyes, raised in closets, regularly raped by Mom's boyfriend. To be sure, such cases do exist, but they are comparatively rare, comprising about fifteen percent of Children's Services caseload (Oregon's Cohort IV study, 1999 stats).
System professionals are far more inclusive. Their definition includes "threat of harm." Threat of harm is defined as, "all actions, statements, written or non-verbal messages conveying threats of physical or mental injury which are serious enough to unsettle the child's mind. It includes: expressions of intent to inflict pain, injury, or punishment on the child." (Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect, Oregon SOSCF, page 12)
Many system professionals define normal parental discipline as child abuse.
Doesn't Children's Services save children, and help make strong families?
Some lives are saved and others improved - at the price of serious emotional abuse to a much larger number of families. System professionals have admitted to CPR that 85+% of former foster care children feel the State did them net harm. Services to Children and Families (SCF) intervention causes lasting trauma to children in many ways - forcible removal from parents, "debonding" efforts by state workers, care by strangers, displacement from school and friends, foster care "bouncing", and abuse while in foster care. It is actually possible that, on balance, Children's Services may do more harm than good.
Aren't thousands of children killed every year through abuse?
No. Children are seldom maimed or killed by parents. In the state of Oregon in 1997, for example, twelve or fewer children were killed by a parent, of a child population approaching 500,000. However, nearly 10,500 children were taken from their home by SCF. No one knows if deaths would increase, decrease, or remain the same if laws governing intervention were changed.
How do you explain Children's Services conduct?
State and Federal child abuse laws do NOT provide a stratification of penalties and definitions. All abuse is the same. A single welt from a well-deserved spanking carries precisely the same definition, the same penalties, and the same invitation to system intervention as third-degree burns, broken bones, and torn vaginas. This is like giving the same descriptive word, " lawbreaking", to all infractions, ranging from U-turns to first-degree murder - with no stratification of penalties. Also, state and federal funding models give numerous perverse financial incentives to remove children from home.
Caseworkers have the impossible task of preventing abuse before it happens. Most have huge (30-50 active) caseloads. Stress is high. Job qualifications are minimal. Caseworkers have immense power over families, while enjoying total civil and criminal immunity. They do not answer to locally elected officials.
Caseworkers are usually blind to the negative effects of their intervention. Fundamental to the system's self-image is the concept that does it only good. This leads it to circular reasoning: whatever the system does is the right thing to do. For them, there is no higher standard.
All too often, caseworker attitudes are far out of the mainstream. Ask your local SCF branch office if forcibly removing a child from home is abuse, and if it causes lasting trauma. Ask what happens when children want to go home. Ask if once-weekly visitations are sufficient to maintain genuine family bonding. Ask if children are ever bounced from one foster care home to another. Ask for demographic information about local foster care families. Watch and listen carefully to their answers. You will find them instructive.
Caseworkers sometimes engage in self-protective persecution, especially for parents who resist: "I can't possibly be wrong, because then I'd be no better than X, so if I'm wrong, I'll torture the victim even more to prove I'm not wrong." Watch the PBS special, "A Thin Blue Line" to get a better understanding of the pathology of this attitude. Or, do an Internet search on "Wenatchee".
Isn't a bruise from discipline, clearly abuse?
Most system professionals say, "yes.". They are mistaken. Consider the following:
Consider the Doctrine of Competing Harms: SCF intervention doesn't start with a nice grandmotherly social worker asking if she can help. It most often begins with sudden, forcible removal by law enforcement, which nearly always causes serious, lasting psychological trauma to parent and child alike.
Finally, in America, spanking is legal. More than half of all parents spank. Numerous polls reveal most adults believe spanking is sometimes necessary. We need to acknowledge no parent comes with a calibrated arm.
Are you saying parents should be allowed to bruise their children at will?
At CPR, we don't like the idea of just allowing parents to willy-nilly bruise their kids, then stick out their tongues at anyone showing concern. However, the current "pounce on them" system is a bad trade. Fines and carefully defined escalation procedures (with criminal and civil penalties for violation by caseworkers and law enforcement) is the best compromise.
When should Children's Services intervene?
Children's Services should intervene if there is probable cause to believe the child is in immediate danger of death or great bodily harm, or if the child exhibits long-term, debilitating, and confirmed psychological trauma. To be sure, a caring society would like to make lives better for all children. However, the existing system is trying to do redemptive work, using only punitive tools. It is itself abusive. A severe test is necessary to be reasonably certain the system is doing net good.
Doesn't the system really care about justice?
No. Justice requires genuine compassion. Take it from those who've been there: the system is best understood on a Machiavellian basis. It cares most about saving face, followed closely by winning. It believes its actions always define what is right. Defendants are always guilty. It will always excuse itself for its misdeeds. If you think differently, ask ANY experienced criminal defense attorney. The Rodney King riots and OJ verdict may have been understandable responses by those who've seen too much of the system's dark side. The justice system is not Perry Mason or Tom Cruise. Justice takes huge amounts of money and work; it is at best a very uncertain thing.
Shouldn't we give system professionals the benefit of the doubt?
No. Responsibility goes with power. Responsibility comes through training. Even untrained citizens are held to the "ignorance is no excuse" standard in American jurisprudence. Is it really appropriate to hold trained professional to anything less? Are any other professions given the same benefit of the doubt?
Don't caseworkers really care about children?
Some do. For most, it is more accurate to say they care about an idealized concept of children - rather than about the children themselves, or the adults they will become. Most caseworkers are unmarried, childless, and have little comprehension of traditional family structure.
Theoretically, yes. Practically, no. For example, removing your child from your home is not legally considered a penalty to you, nor is it an arrest for your child. Legal fees are not a penalty, either: if you can't afford college for your child because years ago you had to pay lawyers to rescue them, tough. Children's Services can permanently remove your child from you, without a jury trial. You can be subjected to not only double jeopardy, but triple jeopardy - family court for custody, civil court for garnishment of wages to pay for court-ordered foster care, criminal court for abuse. You may well face all three simultaneously. If you are married, understand you and your spouse do not have normal spousal fifth-amendment privileges. You probably think police need a warrant to enter your home to seize your child. Wrong. Police never have to return people illegally seized, only evidence.
Don't children have rights?
Practically speaking, no. Ask your local SCF office if they return children who want to go home. You'll get a well-rehearsed lecture about "working hard to keep families together". Keep pushing. Their final response will give you a much better understanding of what the system means by "children's rights."
How likely is it for my own child to be wrongly abducted?
Statistics from Oregon's Services to Children and Families (SCF) shows that if a caseworker visits your home, there is at least a 40% chance your child will be taken. Of the roughly ten thousand children taken from home in Oregon annually, some twenty percent - about 2,000 - will be taken unjustifiably, even using SCF's own guidelines. Your child is at least two hundred and fifty times more likely to be wrongly abducted by SCF than stolen by other criminals. If you spank, if your kids attend public school, or if you assert your rights, exposure rises dramatically.
What can I do to help?
If you are a parent, educate those around you, and take pre-emptive steps to protect those you love. If your children have been taken unjustifiably, don't whimper silently and agonize over stigma. Silence only dooms others. Do your duty as a citizen. At the very least, contact your legislators and your newspaper. Have friends do the same. Be a skeptical juror. Ask pointed questions of the "Safe, Strong, and Free" bunch when they come to indoctrinate your public school student about abuse. Talk about SCF policies with your friends and co-workers. Lend assistance to anyone you know with SCF in their lives.
Alternatively, you can work within the system. Contact SCF in your area and ask to be a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) or GAL (Guardian Ad Litem) volunteer, or a member of the CRB (Citizen's Review Board). These can benefit from a well-informed but helpful skeptic.
If you are a judge, stop granting routine continuances to SCF, and question caseworkers thoroughly in court. If you are a legislator, introduce or co-sponsor meaningful reform. If you are a police officer, refuse to forcibly remove a child without a court order. If you are a mandatory reporter, be damned sure the child is being seriously abused before you involve the system.
I'm a Mandatory Reporter. What should I do if I suspect abuse?
CPR recommends you promptly report abuse under two conditions: First, if you have probable cause to believe the child's very life is in serious and immediate danger. Second, if the child exhibits obvious, debilitating, long-term emotional damage. These are severe tests, to be sure - but they are the only conditions in which the system is likely to be helpful to the child.
SCF and Law Enforcement are far better at causing lasting damage to children and families through terrorism, than they are at helping marginal families cope with their problems. Your call will cause lasting harm to the family - you'd better be damned sure that damage will be offset by the greater good of legitimate protection from serious injury or death. CPR acknowledges this may place you in technical violation of the law. Failure to call can place you at personal risk. Welcome to the high-stakes world of child abuse reporting.
What are the chances for genuine reform?
In the near term, poor. Too many politicians give "deer in the headlights" looks when asked about system abuses. Long-term prospects are excellent. SCF gets its support by stroking the guilt complex of self-righteous Boomers who were too busy to pay attention to their own kids. The next generation has experienced the system's problems first-hand. It feels less guilt. Finally, SCF is busily working its way up the parenting food chain. By brutalizing middle and upper-middle class families, it will eventually generate meaningful opposition.
What reform has the best chance for success?
At CPR, we believe bureaucrats value money more than power. State Legislatures should offer Children's Services more money (for counselors, caseworkers, etc) in exchange for power (serious restraint on first-time intervention, jury trials for long-term removal, and defining spanking not abuse). Not only will fewer families be brutalized, more children will receive meaningful help. Kentucky is making a good attempt.
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