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Child Protective Services Needs to Be Reformed [1]

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Date: 2022-12-09

Sarah Perkin and her husband Josh Sabey, had their 14-week old son, Cal, taken from, after authorities suspected that Cal may have been the victim of child abuse. In a story in the Washington Post , we learn that, rather than being child abusers, the couple was entirely innocent, and subjected to a cruel battle for their child. The story is a reminder that institutions have to be designed with care and pragmatism in mind, rather than a box-checking desire to seem to be doing the right thing.

At first glance, there were real reasons to suspect child abuse, or “intentional trauma”: during an X-Ray scan of Cal’s lungs, doctors discovered a fracture on Cam’s rib cage; that was several weeks old. Doctors believed that the injury, which had healed, was nonaccidental, in other words, Sarah and Josh had to explain how he had suffered this injury. Cal joined the millions of children who are part of child protective service investigations. The parents were questioned, nothing further that was suspicious was detected, despite medical tests of the children (they also had a 3-year old son Clarence). Instead of redemption, their children were taken away thanks to “new information”. The footage of the police taking away the children is horrific. As friends tweeted their outrage , the case went viral.

The incident is an example of what happens in an adversarial system. An example of this is in how, once the authorities decided that there was a case to be answered, they noted every roll of the eyes, every emotion; completely divorced from context, in ways that made it seem that these frustrated parents were, instead, raging child abusers. It has to be said that there is no scientific evidence for some investigative techniques. For instance, rolling your eyes is not something a psychologist can check in a diagnostic manual to determine if someone is a child abuser. Without context, a hundred things that are perfectly innocent, can seem like they are highly suspicious. If a nurse is asking you about child abuse, and you are just worried about your child not breathing properly, of course you will roll your eyes and be irritable, because you want to get back to what you know is important.

In fact, as the Washington Post reported, even the research on the link between rib injuries and child abuse is tenuous, and may actually be a case of circular reasoning, with authorities assuming they are caused by child abuse. Yet, the authorities involved took a hard position based on tenuous links. In the end, the reason there was a rib injury turns out to be quite innocent. Cal’s grandmother remembered picking him up from the carseat, and, when his head rolled back, grasping him tightly. He shrieked, but called down quickly, so she didn’t think to say anything to his parents. Nonetheless, an investigation went on. Ultimately, they got their son back, but for many people, child protective services do not serve children or the parents. Instead, they seem to assume the guilt of parents, even when there is no scientific or real basis to find for child abuse, and to quickly remove children from care, even when they do not have the resources to adequately care for children -what child likes being under child protective services?-, and being slow to rectify their mistakes. With 37% of children likely to be subject to child protective services investigations by the time they turn 18, the overreach of the authorities is immense. A system built on the presumption of parental guilt is not a healthy or helpful system.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/9/2140984/-Child-Protective-Services-Needs-to-Be-Reformed

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